Getting Started with Claude Science

Getting Started with Claude Science

Northeastern HPC, AICR, and Claude Science. What the install pages say, what a first launch actually looks like on a Mac, and what the app does when you ask about a folder it cannot see.

We started a second copy of Claude Science with an empty data folder and recorded the first launch: setup, sign-in, the setup questions, the first message, and the permission card that appears when you point it at a folder. Everything shown on screen was recorded from the real app. Where the app and its documentation differ, the film says so.

Your turn: paste the prompt from the end of the film into Claude Science, name a folder, and watch the permission card.

Narrated by Liam, in for Bear.

youtube.com/@NikBearBrown

▶ The full series playlist — Brutalist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG9H-C6rp5RU

Transcript

A lightly formatted transcript of the video, with timestamps so you can jump to any section on YouTube.

[0:00] Northeastern HPC, AICR, and Claude Science. Getting started with Claude Science. What the install pages say. What a first launch looks like on a Mac. And what the app does when you ask about a folder it cannot see. Hello, this is Liam in for Bear. First, a correction. Getting started is not just installing an app and typing a question. It is a short setup, a login, and a first question that shows what the app can see and what it cannot. Six terms: a demon, a program that keeps running in the background. A data folder, where one copy keeps everything it saves. A port, a numbered door on

[0:33] Your own computer. A login link, a one-time web address that signs you in. Starter tasks, first jobs the app suggests from your answers. And a folder grant, permission to read a folder on your computer. Start at the product page. It calls Claude Science a research partner for rigorous science, marks it beta, and puts one button in front of you, download now. The get started page says what you need: a Claude Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise plan. On some team plans, an owner has to turn Claude Science on first. Install has three tabs: macOS, Windows, and Linux. On a Mac, you download an installer and double-click it. The page

[1:09] Says first launch sets up Python and R environments, takes a few minutes, then opens a tab in your browser. Our Mac already had Claude Science, so we started a second copy with an empty data folder on its own port. That behaves like a first launch. One command starts it in the background, and it prints where its data lives and how to get a login link. Setup took about 9 seconds. The database was ready in 33 milliseconds. 20 built-in connectors began warming, and the demon was listening within a second. The page says a few minutes. Ours took 9 seconds as a second copy on a Mac that

[1:42] Already had one. One trap, put the data folder flag before the word serve, and the command refuses. Unknown argument. Put it after, and everything a copy keeps lives in that one folder. Ours came to 113 megabytes. The get started page describes the next step. Sign in with your Claude account. The app opens Claude.ai in your browser and once you approve there, it continues. No API key is needed. In our recording, a login link opened a small card with one sign-in button. Those links work once and expire in about 3 minutes. We did not record the approval step, so we did not show it. Setup asks

[2:18] What you work on, a sentence about your field, methods, and project, or a paper, or a readme to attach. Claude uses it to suggest starter tasks. A row of dots shows how far along you are. Then it spends a few seconds writing starter tasks for you and a start button appears. In the message box, an @ sign opens a picker of saved files from your projects with their sizes. Here it lists files saved by the example project. We asked it to list a folder and summarize a file called HPC.md. Before anything ran, a card showed the command, print the working folder, list the files, and look for that file. We

[2:53] Allowed it for this conversation, the default. Then the honest part, it said no folder is shared with it, its workspace is empty, and there is no saved file with that name. It asked for the full path and said it would then ask for read-only access. That is the card it meant. It names the folder and offers read-only or read and write. This one is from another session of the same app where we chose read-only, then allow, and the card closes. If the page ever says you have been signed out, it tells you what to do. Run Claude Science URL with your data folder and open the link it prints.

[3:27] Let's recap with Claude install from the product page with a plan that includes Claude Science. A first launch takes seconds and opens with a one-time login link. Setup asks what you work on, then write starter tasks for you. And if you ask about a folder it cannot see, it says so and asks for access. Your turn, paste this into Claude Science. List the files in the folder I name and summarize what readme.md is for in two sentences. If you cannot see the folder, tell me exactly what you cannot see and ask me for access. Then check two things yourself. Did it show you the command before it ran? And if the folder

[3:59] Was not shared, did it say so instead of guessing? Getting started with Claude science at Nick Bare Brown.