Hands-on tutorials: steps, code, prompts and the checks that keep a result valid.
One typed goal makes Claude Code pull SEC filings, build a firm-quarter panel, run the checks and commit the result. Auto mode and /goal keep it working until the checks pass.
Claude Code or OpenAI Codex, desktop app or command line. Generic and budget setups hide what the new tools can do.
Automation starts with the stage that has the clearest pass or fail. Turn the data pull into one command with checks and a manifest.
Most data licenses forbid putting the content into AI systems. An agent can still write and repair the whole pipeline if the licensed rows never enter its context.
Four clauses decide whether an AI service is safe for research data. They are retention, training, access and model, and a sales answer on any of them counts for nothing until it is in the contract.
Use the lowest-level, most structured interface the job allows. That means SQL or an API for data, the command line for software, and the screen only when nothing else reaches it.
Machine learning, mathematics, biomedicine and finance each have a system that runs most of the research loop. Two of them you can install today.
Claude Code is a program that takes a task, runs the commands and checks the result. In six months it passed GitHub Copilot among professional developers.
Two plain text files turn an agent from a stranger into a research assistant who knows the project. The same content works in Claude Code and OpenAI Codex.
A model trained on text through 2024 has already read how 2019 turned out. Four checks show whether your result survives that.
OpenRouter is the quick way to try many models with one key. Bedrock is the one to use when the data is licensed or the university already buys from AWS.
Cached input costs a tenth of the normal price and batch jobs cost half. Spend on usage for the people you have before you spend on support staff.
Vast.ai is a marketplace with the lowest floor prices and the most variance. RunPod has fixed prices and a data-center tier. Which one depends on what is on the disk.
Their interface is worth less every month and they cannot see what your agent does. That gives you more room at renewal than you have had in twenty years.