scholar

Scholar Plugin

Academic workflows for teaching - Course material generation: exams, quizzes, slides, lectures, assignments, rubrics, and Canvas LMS export.

⚠️ Scholar is now teaching-only (v3.0.0). The research surface — literature, manuscript, simulation, and research-planning commands plus all skills — was removed in v3.0.0, with no replacement. Migrating from scholar v2.x? See what was removed.

A Claude Code plugin for academic teaching workflows. Features a unified Plugin + MCP architecture with 18 teaching commands (+ hub).

Features

📚 18 Teaching Commands (+ hub)

Teaching (18 commands)

• /teaching:quiz <topic> - Generate quiz questions with answer keys ✅
• /teaching:exam <type> - Create comprehensive exams with rubrics. NEW in v2.18.0: --format exam-rich-latex for evidence-based statistics exams ✅
• /teaching:assignment <topic> - Create homework assignments with solutions ✅
• /teaching:solution <file> - Generate standalone solution keys from assignment files ✅
• /teaching:syllabus <course> - Generate comprehensive course syllabus ✅
• /teaching:slides <topic> - Create lecture slides with examples ✅
• /teaching:rubric <type> - Generate detailed grading rubrics ✅
• /teaching:feedback <assignment> - Generate constructive student feedback ✅
• /teaching:demo [path] - Create demo course environment with sample materials ✅
• /teaching:lecture <topic> - Generate comprehensive lecture notes ✅
• /teaching:validate <file> - Validate YAML configuration files (multi-level) ✅
• /teaching:validate-r <file> - Validate R code chunks in .qmd files ✅
• /teaching:diff <file> - Compare YAML and JSON sync status ✅
• /teaching:sync [options] - Synchronize YAML to JSON ✅
• /teaching:migrate - Batch migrate YAML configs from v1 to v2 schema ✅
• /teaching:config <subcommand> - Manage prompts, config, and provenance ✅
• /teaching:preflight - Pre-release health checks for Scholar projects ✅
• /teaching:canvas <file> - Convert exam files to Canvas QTI format ✅

Command Discovery (1 command)

• /scholar:hub [argument] - Browse all commands, drill into categories, get usage details ✅

🎯 Skills

Scholar is teaching-only and ships 1 skill — statistical-pedagogy-framework (added in v3.1.0). The former research skills (mathematical, implementation, writing, discovery categories) were removed in v3.0.0 — see what was removed.

🏗️ Architecture

Unified Plugin + MCP Pattern:

• src/core/ - Framework-agnostic business logic
• src/plugin-api/ - Claude Plugin commands
• src/mcp-server/ - MCP Protocol tools
• lib/ - Shell API wrappers

This architecture eliminates IPC overhead by sharing core logic directly between both APIs.

Phase 0 Foundation + Teaching Commands:

• src/teaching/templates/ - Template system (exam, quiz, assignment, syllabus, lecture)
• src/teaching/generators/ - AI-powered content generation
• src/teaching/config/ - Configuration management
• src/teaching/validators/ - Multi-layer validation (Schema + LaTeX + Completeness)
• src/teaching/ai/ - AI content generation with retry logic
• tests/teaching/ - 3,412 unit tests (100% passing)

See Phase 0 Architecture for detailed documentation.

Installation

Scholar is a pure plugin with no MCP server dependencies. It works immediately after installation in both Claude Code CLI and Claude Desktop app.

Option 1: Homebrew (Recommended - macOS)

# Add the Data-Wise tap
brew tap data-wise/tap

# Install scholar plugin
brew install scholar

# Or upgrade existing installation
brew upgrade scholar

The Homebrew formula automatically:

• Installs the plugin to ~/.claude/plugins/scholar
• Syncs Claude Code's plugin cache (new features available immediately)
• Makes it available in Claude Code CLI and Claude Desktop
• No additional configuration needed

Latest version: v3.1.1 (released 2026-06-21)

• 19 commands (18 teaching + 1 hub), 1 skill (teaching-only)
• 3,412 tests with 100% pass rate
• Comprehensive documentation (95% coverage)

Option 2: Manual Installation (Local Development)