Start with a clear CLAUDE.md. Describe your project structure, tech stack, coding conventions, and common commands in under 300 words. This single file has the largest impact on Claude Code’s accuracy and efficiency. Use skills for domain knowledge. Move detailed reference information (...

biber fails with “control file not found”: Run latexmk -C to clean all auxiliary files, then rebuild from scratch. minted package errors: Ensure -shell-escape flag is passed to pdflatex. The build script above includes this. Claude Code inserts incorrect LaTeX escapes: Add to CLAUDE.md: “When...

Claude Code for LaTeX Document Workflow (2026)

Last updated: April 21, 2026

The Workflow

Use Claude Code to write, edit, and manage LaTeX documents for academic papers, theses, technical reports, and presentations. Claude Code handles complex formatting, bibliography management, equation typesetting, and compilation pipeline automation.

Expected time: 10 minutes setup Prerequisites: TeX Live 2024+ or MiKTeX, Claude Code CLI installed, latexmk

Setup

1. Install LaTeX and Tools

# macOS
brew install --cask mactex-no-gui
brew install latexmk
# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install texlive-full latexmk
# Verify
pdflatex --version
latexmk --version
biber --version

2. Create CLAUDE.md for LaTeX Projects

# Project: Research Paper
LaTeX document using ACM sigconf template.
## Conventions
- Use biblatex with biber backend (not bibtex)
- All figures in figures/ directory as PDF or PNG
- Tables use booktabs package (no vertical lines)
- Code listings use minted package
- Cross-references: \cref{} from cleveref package
- Citations: \textcite{} for narrative, \parencite{} for parenthetical
- One sentence per line in source (for better git diffs)
- Compile with: latexmk -pdf -shell-escape main.tex

3. Create Compilation Script

cat > build.sh << 'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
set -e
echo "Building LaTeX document..."
latexmk -pdf -shell-escape -interaction=nonstopmode main.tex
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "Success: main.pdf generated ($(du -h main.pdf | cut -f1))"
else
    echo "Build failed. Check main.log for errors."
    tail -20 main.log
    exit 1
fi
EOF
chmod +x build.sh

4. Verify

claude --print "What LaTeX packages are loaded in main.tex?"
# Expected output:
# Lists the packages from your document preamble

Usage Example

Generate a complete research paper structure with Claude Code:

claude
> Create a LaTeX paper structure for a computer science research paper:
> - ACM sigconf format
> - Title: "Efficient Caching Strategies for Distributed LLM Inference"
> - Sections: Abstract, Introduction, Background, Methodology,
>   Evaluation, Related Work, Conclusion
> - biblatex with biber
> - Include a Makefile for compilation

Claude Code generates:

% main.tex
\documentclass[sigconf,nonacm]{acmart}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{cleveref}
\usepackage[style=acmauthoryear,backend=biber]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{references.bib}
\title{Efficient Caching Strategies for Distributed LLM Inference}
\author{Jane Smith}
\affiliation{%
  \institution{University of Example}
  \city{San Francisco}
  \state{California}
  \country{USA}
}
\email{jane.smith@example.edu}
\begin{abstract}
We present a novel caching framework for distributed large language
model inference that reduces redundant computation by 47\%
while maintaining response quality.
Our approach combines semantic similarity caching with
prefix-aware key-value cache sharing across inference nodes.
\end{abstract}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:introduction}
Large language model inference at scale presents significant
computational challenges.
Each request requires processing through billions of parameters,
making caching strategies essential for practical deployment.
\section{Background}
\label{sec:background}
\subsection{KV-Cache in Transformer Models}
The key-value cache stores intermediate attention computations
to avoid redundant work during autoregressive generation
\parencite{vaswani2017attention}.
For a model with $L$ layers and head dimension $d_h$,
the cache size per token is:
\begin{equation}
  \text{Cache}_{size} = 2 \times L \times n_h \times d_h \times \text{sizeof(dtype)}
  \label{eq:cache-size}
\end{equation}
where $n_h$ is the number of attention heads.
\subsection{Semantic Caching}
Semantic caching groups requests by embedding similarity
rather than exact string matching.
Given an embedding function $f: \mathcal{T} \to \mathbb{R}^d$,
two prompts $p_1, p_2$ share a cache entry when:
\begin{equation}
  \text{sim}(f(p_1), f(p_2)) > \tau
  \label{eq:similarity}
\end{equation}
\section{Methodology}
\label{sec:methodology}
Our framework operates in three stages, as shown in \cref{fig:architecture}.
\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=\columnwidth]{figures/architecture.pdf}
  \caption{System architecture showing the three-stage caching pipeline.}
  \label{fig:architecture}
\end{figure}
\section{Evaluation}
\label{sec:evaluation}
\begin{table}[t]
  \centering
  \caption{Inference latency comparison (ms) across caching strategies.}
  \label{tab:latency}
  \begin{tabular}{lrrr}
    \toprule
    Strategy & P50 & P95 & P99 \\
    \midrule
    No cache       & 2,340 & 4,120 & 6,890 \\
    Exact match    & 1,890 & 3,450 & 5,230 \\
    Semantic (ours) &   980 & 2,100 & 3,410 \\
    \bottomrule
  \end{tabular}
\end{table}
The results in \cref{tab:latency} demonstrate that our semantic
caching approach reduces median latency by 58\% compared to
no caching and 48\% compared to exact-match caching.
\section{Related Work}
\label{sec:related}
\textcite{pope2023efficiently} introduced the concept of
paged attention for efficient KV-cache management.
\section{Conclusion}
\label{sec:conclusion}
We presented a semantic caching framework that significantly
reduces inference latency for distributed LLM serving.
\printbibliography
\end{document}

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the minimum setup required?

You need Claude Code installed (Node.js 18+), a project with a CLAUDE.md file, and the relevant toolchain for your project type (e.g., npm for JavaScript, pip for Python). The CLAUDE.md file should describe your project structure, conventions, and common commands so Claude Code can work effectively.

How long does the initial setup take?

For a typical project, initial setup takes 10-20 minutes. This includes creating the CLAUDE.md file, configuring .claude/settings.json for permissions, and running a test task to verify everything works. Subsequent sessions start immediately because the configuration persists.

Can I use this with a team?

Yes. Commit your .claude/ directory and CLAUDE.md to version control so the entire team uses the same configuration. Each developer can add personal preferences in ~/.claude/settings.json (user-level) without affecting the project configuration. Review CLAUDE.md changes in pull requests like any other configuration file.

What if Claude Code produces incorrect output?

First check that your CLAUDE.md accurately describes your project conventions. Incorrect or outdated context is the most common cause of wrong output. If the output is still wrong, provide feedback in the same session — Claude Code learns from corrections within a conversation. For persistent issues, add explicit rules to CLAUDE.md (e.g., “Always use single quotes” or “Never modify files in the config/ directory”).

Best Practices

Start with a clear CLAUDE.md. Describe your project structure, tech stack, coding conventions, and common commands in under 300 words. This single file has the largest impact on Claude Code’s accuracy and efficiency.
Use skills for domain knowledge. Move detailed reference information (API routes, database schemas, deployment procedures) into .claude/skills/ files. This keeps CLAUDE.md concise while making specialized knowledge available when needed.
Review changes before committing. Always run git diff after Claude Code makes changes. Verify the edits are correct, match your project style, and do not introduce unintended side effects. This habit prevents compounding errors across sessions.
Set up permission guardrails. Configure .claude/settings.json with explicit allow and deny lists. Allow your standard development commands (test, build, lint) and deny destructive operations (rm -rf, git push –force, database drops).
Keep sessions focused. Give Claude Code one clear task per prompt. Multi-step requests like “refactor auth, add tests, and update docs” produce better results when broken into three separate prompts, each building on the previous result.

# Makefile
.PHONY: all clean watch
all: main.pdf
main.pdf: main.tex references.bib
	latexmk -pdf -shell-escape -interaction=nonstopmode main.tex
clean:
	latexmk -C
	rm -f *.bbl *.run.xml
watch:
	latexmk -pdf -shell-escape -pvc main.tex

Continue editing with Claude Code:

> Add a "Limitations" subsection to the Conclusion. Mention that
> our approach has higher memory overhead and doesn't handle
> streaming responses. Include the equation for memory overhead.

Common Issues

biber fails with “control file not found”: Run latexmk -C to clean all auxiliary files, then rebuild from scratch.
minted package errors: Ensure -shell-escape flag is passed to pdflatex. The build script above includes this.
Claude Code inserts incorrect LaTeX escapes: Add to CLAUDE.md: “When writing LaTeX, use raw LaTeX commands. Do not HTML-escape ampersands or percent signs.”

Why This Matters

Researchers spend 30-40% of paper-writing time on LaTeX formatting. Claude Code handles the boilerplate, equation typesetting, and table formatting so you can focus on the content and analysis.

Set it up → Build your permission config with our Permission Configurator.

Try it: Paste your error into our Error Diagnostic for an instant fix.