Claude Code 101
Finish line: Claude Code answers a live economics question with a real number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — series ID, timestamp, and all. About 10 minutes.
① The hook (do this first, before connecting)
In a Claude Code session, ask:
What was the US unemployment rate last month?
Watch what happens: it will either hedge (“as of my training data…”), give a stale number, or reach for web search and paraphrase a news article. None of those is the actual BLS figure with provenance. Keep that answer — you’ll compare it in step ④.
② Connect
claude mcp add --transport http pipeworx https://pipeworx.io/mcpRestart Claude Code. (Prefer the official plugin? /plugin install pipeworx — it also ships auto-routing so you never have to say “using Pipeworx”.)
③ Checkpoint
Run /mcp. You should see pipeworx listed with roughly 38 tools. If it’s missing, re-run the command in ② and restart — that’s the whole failure mode.
④ The finish line
Ask the same question, routed through Pipeworx:
Using Pipeworx, what was the US unemployment rate last month?
This time Claude calls ask_pipeworx, which routes to live BLS data. You should get last month’s actual rate — with the series identifier (like LNS14000000, the civilian unemployment rate) and a fetch timestamp. Compare it with your step-① answer. That difference — a verifiable number from the source of record instead of a hedge — is the thing to check for. The same routing covers 5,303 tools across 1,392 sources.
Two more worth trying:
Using Pipeworx, what 8-K filings has Apple made this month?
Using Pipeworx, what’s the weather in Tokyo right now?
⑤ Graduate
- Make it automatic: install the plugin or add the rule-file block to your
CLAUDE.md, so Claude reaches for live data without the “Using Pipeworx” prefix. - Go deeper in your domain: the recipes are copy-paste prompts for real jobs — company research, drug safety profiles, patent due diligence.
- Hitting the 50/day anonymous cap? A free account raises it to 200/day.