Resources and Next Steps

Last updated on 2026-08-31 | Edit this page

Overview

Questions

  • Which tool should I reach for, and when?
  • How do I take this back to my own data?

Objectives

  • Choose an appropriate AI coding tool for a given task and data sensitivity.
  • Draft a workflow plan for one of your own datasets specifying tool, backend, no-go zones, opening prompt, validation check, and provenance record.
  • Recognize signs of AI hype using a stated set of criteria (scope, transparency, citations, privacy).

This episode is a short reference and a plan for what you do next. The detail is deliberately light: the skills you practised (spec, plan, validate, judge, document) transfer across every tool below.

A tool-choice table

Tool What it is Reach for it when
Claude Code (used in this lesson) Anthropic’s CLI agent terminal-native work on your real files
Codex CLI / Cursor OpenAI CLI / AI code editor you prefer a different vendor or an editor-integrated agent
Aider + Ollama open CLI agent + local model runner sensitive data that must stay on your machine, or reproducibility
NotebookLM, Elicit, Consensus document/literature tools grounding answers in your own PDFs or the literature, not coding

Local models (run via Ollama) keep data on your hardware and let you pin a frozen version for reproducibility, at the cost of needing a capable GPU. Many researchers use a hybrid approach: a cloud model for general scripting, a local model for sensitive data.

Challenge

Quick check: which pairing is a problem?

Which of these tool-and-data pairings should give you pause?

  1. Claude Code, for cleaning a public, already-published dataset.
  2. Aider + Ollama, for a pipeline that must reproduce identically in five years.
  3. Claude Code (default cloud backend, no institutional agreement), for a first pass on sensitive, unpublished human-subjects data.
  4. NotebookLM, for asking questions grounded in a folder of your own PDFs.

3. Sending sensitive, unpublished human-subjects data to a general cloud endpoint with no institutional agreement or approved backend behind it is exactly the pairing to avoid, that is what “which approved backend” in the workflow card is asking you to check before you start, not after. The other three are reasonable defaults: public data carries no sensitivity constraint (1), a local pinned model fits a reproducibility requirement well (2), and a document-grounding tool used on your own files is what it is built for (4).

Caution

MCP and the shadow-IT risk

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) lets agents connect to external tools and data sources (databases, file systems, services). Anthropic donated MCP governance to the Linux Foundation’s Agentic AI Foundation in December 2025, and an official server registry now exists — but registry listing is not a safety certification. MCP servers are still often installed without institutional oversight, and prompt injection and silent data exfiltration remain real risks: a server’s tool descriptions and returned data should be treated as untrusted input, not just the servers themselves. Before connecting one, check it is actively maintained and from a trusted source, sandbox it with minimal filesystem/network access where you can, and confirm your institution’s policy covers it.

Citing and crediting AI

Transparent attribution is part of open science. Major standards (COPE, Nature, Elsevier) agree AI tools cannot be authors, because they cannot take accountability. Cite them as methodological tools instead.

  • In a repo README.md: note the model, its role, and who verified the output (for example, “Claude [current model name] drafted the cleaning script; verified by [you] via validate_data.py”).
  • In a manuscript: name the model in methods or acknowledgements, and keep prompts and outputs available.
  • References: COPE on AI authorship, Elsevier AI policy, CRediT taxonomy.
Challenge

Challenge: your Monday workflow card

Pick one real scenario from your own work, then fill out a short plan you could actually use next week. A ready-made template, monday-worksheet.md, ships with the lesson (in learners/files/); open it and fill it in.

Choose a scenario: a small public CSV, sensitive human-subjects data, large geospatial files, or an existing messy repository.

For it, write down:

  1. Tool and backend: which tool, and (if your data is sensitive) which approved backend?
  2. What the AI can see / must not touch: the no-go zones for your CLAUDE.md.
  3. First prompt: your “plan only, no code yet” opener.
  4. Validation: the one check that would most likely catch a silent error in this task.
  5. Provenance: where you will record model, date, and prompt.

A good card is specific to your data. The validation line is the tell: if you cannot name a check that would fail when the result is wrong, you do not yet understand the task well enough to delegate it. That is fine, it just means you start by understanding, not generating.

Spotting hype

New tools appear daily, and many are more marketing than substance. Before adopting one:

  • Scope: beware tools that claim to do everything; specialised tools usually work better.
  • Transparency: can you see the intermediate steps, or just the answer?
  • Citations: does it give real, checkable DOIs and URLs?
  • Privacy: if it is free, is your data used for training?
Challenge

Quick check: spot the hype

For each tool description, name the one criterion above it fails most clearly.

  1. “Answers any research question instantly, across any field, no setup required.”
  2. “Summarises your uploaded PDFs and gives you a final answer, no need to see the underlying search or reasoning.”
  3. “Free forever. Just sign up and start uploading your data today.”
  1. Scope. “Any field, any question” is the specialised-vs-does-everything red flag, a tool that claims no domain limits usually has no domain depth either.
  2. Transparency. Hiding the intermediate steps means you cannot check its work, only trust its answer.
  3. Privacy. A free tool that just wants your data uploaded, with no mention of what happens to it, is the exact case the privacy criterion is asking you to check before you use it, not after.

A few sources that stay practical and skeptical: Simon Willison (AI engineering and security), Ethan Mollick (AI and cognitive work), Hamel Husain (systematic evaluation), and The Batch (balanced industry coverage).

For the tool used here, see the Claude Code documentation. For definitions of terms used throughout this lesson (Living Spec, external brain, approval gates, and more), see the learner reference page.

Key Points
  • The workflow transfers across tools; match the tool and backend to the task and data sensitivity.
  • Attribute AI use transparently; it cannot be an author.
  • Leave with a concrete plan for your own data, including the one check that would catch a silent error.
  • Before adopting a new tool, check its scope claims, transparency, citations, and data-privacy terms; new tools appear daily, and many are more marketing than substance.