analysis-conventions

Analysis Conventions

Note: Project-level preferences (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md) override these.

When to Use Plain Scripts vs Marimo

• Plain .py script: deterministic pipeline steps, one-shot computations, CI/automation contexts where a notebook adds unnecessary complexity.
• Marimo notebook: exploratory analysis, interactive parameter tweaking, work that benefits from visible intermediate outputs and tables. Good default for analysis work.

When in doubt, start with a plain script. Refactor to marimo if the user wants interactivity.

• uvx marimo edit <path> — interactive editing
• uvx marimo export html <path> -o output.html — executes cells and renders output (use for generating reports as side effects)
• uvx marimo export md <path> — exports source code as markdown (does NOT execute cells)

Script Execution

Use uv run for executing plain scripts. Use uvx for running CLI tools (like marimo). Do not use bare python — uv handles dependency resolution and virtual environments.

Scratchpad Scripts

When testing setup calls or ephemerally computing numbers during a conversation, MUST write a temp/_.py file and re-use it. Don't inline multi-line Python in bash commands that need to be re-approved each time.

Once the numbers are incorporated into a notebook or model, delete the scratchpad — its purpose is to make a single approval all that's required, keep intermediate work visible, not to be a permanent artifact. If there's no model to fold it into, the scratchpad is the artifact and should be kept. The agent should clean up temp/ files before ending the conversation unless they are the final output.

MUST NOT embed raw calculated numbers in markdown without a visible formula or a reference to the model that produced them.

Notebook/Script Structure

• Inputs first — key parameters, inputs, specs etc with source links, rates, costs as simple variable assignments
• Formulas as functions — named, with docstrings showing the formula
• Show your work — render tables with the formula and result side by side (e.g., (370/1000) x 92 x 24 = 817)
• Sources at the bottom — document where inputs came from