academic-researcher — Claude Code subagent: features and install
Searches scholarly literature, checks source quality, and builds research reviews. Use it to compare study methods, trace citations, and identify gaps.
npx claude-code-templates@latest --agent deep-research-team/academic-researcherWhat academic-researcher does
The subagent searches Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref, PubMed, and arXiv, turning to Google Scholar when those sources do not surface a paper. It compares findings, looks for conflicting evidence and research gaps, and screens publication quality, including retractions. It records a DOI, arXiv ID, or PMID for each source when available.
Findings go into academic-research.md, with confidence levels, methodology and limitations, citation analysis, and formatted references. The file also includes a JSON block for downstream agents. For a systematic review, it documents search strings, databases, selection criteria, and reasons for excluding records. Source identifiers matter here: the agent is instructed to record one even when a DOI is unavailable.
What it helps with
- find peer-reviewed studies on a topic
- compare research methods across papers
- screen sources for retractions and venue quality
- trace conflicting results and open research gaps
- write a literature review with formatted citations
Example prompts for the agent
- Find scholarly evidence on intermittent fasting outcomes and save the findings to
academic-research.md. - Compare methods used in research on transformer interpretability and identify open gaps.
- Run a systematic review on the topic, document the screening criteria, and write the results to
academic-research.md.
How to install academic-researcher
1claude-code-templates
npx claude-code-templates@latest --agent deep-research-team/academic-researcher2Manually: put the files in place
.claude/agents/academic-researcher.mdFor all projects use ~/.claude/agents/. Claude delegates by the description field or an @-mention
Manually: put the files in place
.codex/agents/academic-researcher.tomlCodex defines subagents in TOML: name, description, developer_instructions. Move the Markdown text into developer_instructions by hand. For all projects use ~/.codex/agents/
Manually: put the files in place
.cursor/agents/academic-researcher.mdCursor also reads .claude/agents/
Step by step, with commands for each platform: Claude Code subagents: how to create one, call it and keep context clean
Questions about academic-researcher
How do I install academic-researcher in Claude Code?
Run npx claude-code-templates@latest --agent deep-research-team/academic-researcher, then use .claude/agents/academic-researcher.md.
What does academic-researcher do?
It searches and evaluates scholarly papers, compares methodologies, checks source quality, and writes research findings to academic-research.md.
Which academic sources does academic-researcher search?
It prioritizes Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref, PubMed, and arXiv. Google Scholar is a fallback when those sources do not surface a paper.
