dotclaude

Command in academic

research-log

Append a dated entry to the thesis research log (RESEARCH_LOG.md) recording what was read, done, decided, and what comes next, pulling the day's evidence from git history, new reading notes, and the conversation, so progress is never reconstructed from memory before a supervisor meeting. Use at the end of a working session, after a decision, or when asked what happened this week.

Arguments
[free text for the entry, or nothing to build it from today's activity]
Model
inherit
Allowed tools
Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep, Bash(git:*), Bash(ls:*), Bash(find:*), Bash(date:*)

Install

As a plugin

Bundled in the thesis plugin. Add the marketplace once, then install the bundle; it updates with the marketplace.

/plugin marketplace add KhaledSaeed18/dotclaude
/plugin install thesis@dotclaude

As a single item

Run from the project root; the command lands under .claude/. Copy it to ~/.claude/ to make it global.

npx shadcn@latest add KhaledSaeed18/dotclaude/research-log

Files installed

  • .claude/commands/research-log.md

What it does

Context

Today: !date +%Y-%m-%d

Notes added or changed in the last 7 days:

!find research/notes -name '*.md' -mtime -7 2>/dev/null | sort || echo "(no research/notes directory)"

Commits in the last 7 days:

!git log --since='7 days ago' --format=' %ad %s' --date=short 2>/dev/null || echo "(not a git repository)"

Working tree:

!git status --short 2>/dev/null | head -20

Last log entry:

!awk '/^## /{n++} n==1' RESEARCH_LOG.md 2>/dev/null | head -40 || echo "(no RESEARCH_LOG.md yet)"

Task

Append one entry to RESEARCH_LOG.md (create it with a # Research log heading if absent). Entries are newest-first, so insert after the title, before the previous entry.

Arguments, if any: $ARGUMENTS. Treat them as the student's own summary and fold them in verbatim under the right headings; do not rephrase their words.

Entry format

## 2026-09-21

### Read
- smith2023feedback: one line on what it contributed to the thesis (from the note's "Relation to this thesis").

### Did
- What was built, run, analysed, or written, with paths or commit hashes.

### Decided
- Decisions made, each with the reason and what it rules out. Link to research/QUESTION.md or a note where relevant.

### Open
- Questions for the supervisor, blockers, things that need data or approval.

### Next
- The two or three concrete next actions.

Rules

  • Every bullet must be traceable: a note file, a commit, a path, or something the student said in this session. Do not infer activity from silence.
  • Omit a heading with nothing under it rather than writing "nothing".
  • Keep "Decided" honest: a decision reversed later is recorded as a new decision, not edited out.
  • If the "Open" list has items older than two entries, say so in the reply; those need a supervisor.
  • After writing, print the new entry and the count of entries in the log.

This is the command as installed, rendered from its source on GitHub. Read it as Markdown.

  • thesis-chapterDraft or revise one thesis chapter from the outline, the research question record, the reading notes, and the results, applying the academic-writing skill...
  • thesis-progressReport where the thesis stands in numbers: word count per chapter against the plan, placeholders left ([[FILL]], [[CITE]], [[FIG]]), citation health...
  • academic-writingWrite or revise thesis and paper prose section by section (abstract, introduction, related work, method, results, discussion, conclusion) with the...
  • benchmark-reportingReport computational benchmarks and experimental comparisons the way examiners and reviewers expect: fair baselines run under the same conditions...
  • bibtex-managerMaintain the thesis .bib file as a single source of truth: fetch verified BibTeX from a DOI, arXiv id, or title via CrossRef and arXiv, normalise citation...
  • citation-graphExpand a set of key papers into the literature around them by walking the citation graph with the Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex APIs: backward...