Prompt Engineering Journalists — Communication skill for Claude Code

Advanced prompt engineering for journalists

A 4-week MOOC by [Joe Amditis](https://github.com/jamditis) for the [Knight Center for Journalism](https://journalismcourses.org/) at UT Austin.

**Prerequisite:** [Prompt Engineering 101 for Journalists](https://journalismcourses.org/product/prompt-engineering-101-for-journalists/) or equivalent experience with ChatGPT/Claude.

What you'll learn

This course moves you from web-based AI chat interfaces to terminal CLI tools. By the end, you'll:

• Use Claude Code, Gemini CLI, and other AI tools from the command line
• Write project context files that give AI persistent instructions about your beat
• Build custom Claude skills, plugins, and hooks for journalism workflows
• Create automated pipelines you can schedule with cloud triggers or GitHub Actions
• Manage a CLI session as a manager — budgeting the context window, delegating to sub-agents, and running cross-model code review

**Course site:** [mooc.amditis.tech](https://mooc.amditis.tech)

Course modules

Week	Topic	What you'll build
1	From chat window to command line	CLI tool + beat context file + document processing
2	Custom skills, plugins, and hooks	Custom skill packaged as a plugin
3	Automation, pipelines, and triggered workflows	Automation pipeline with a scheduler or trigger
4	Advanced prompting patterns	Context-management and cross-model review exercise

**Bonus modules:** [Git & GitHub for journalists](docs/bonus-git-github/) | [OSS etiquette with AI tools](docs/bonus-oss-etiquette/) | [Interviews](docs/bonus-interviews/)

Quick start

1. Install Node.js 20+

# Check your version
node --version

# If needed, install via https://nodejs.org or:
brew install node    # macOS
winget install OpenJS.NodeJS  # Windows

2. Install a CLI tool

Pick one to start (Gemini CLI recommended for fr