ATS Resume Writer Agent for Claude Code

v1.1.0

An AI-powered resume and cover letter generator built on Claude Code. It creates ATS-optimized, LaTeX-formatted resumes tailored to specific job descriptions -- and includes a guided career document builder that helps you create the source material through an interactive interview.

Zero fabrication policy: The agent will never estimate metrics, suggest proxy numbers, or embellish your experience. If a quantified achievement isn't in your master document, it won't appear in the output. This is a hard constraint, not a suggestion.

The Zero-Fabrication Resume Workflow

How It Works

The project has two agents that work together:

1. Career Document Builder -- Guides you through an interactive interview to create a comprehensive Master Career Document. It can also ingest existing resumes, LinkedIn profile exports, or any career materials you already have as a starting point.
2. Resume Writer -- Takes your Master Career Document and a job description, then produces a tailored LaTeX resume optimized for Applicant Tracking Systems. You run this each time you apply somewhere.

The typical flow:

1. Build your Master Career Document once (guided interview or manual)
2. Drop a job description file into the project
3. Tell Claude to generate a resume
4. The agent selects the most relevant content, maps keywords, and produces a polished PDF

Sample Output

Here's what the agent produces from the included example data:

Resume:

Sample Resume

Cover Letter:

Sample Cover Letter

Prerequisites

Claude Code

Install Claude Code (Anthropic's CLI tool):

curl -fsSL https://install.anthropic.com | sh

You need an Anthropic API key or a Claude Pro/Max subscription. See Claude Code docs for setup. Each resume generation typically uses the Sonnet model and takes 30-60 seconds. The career document builder interview takes longer depending on career complexity.

LaTeX (for PDF compilation)

The agent outputs .tex files. To compile them to PDF, you need pdflatex.

Ubuntu/Debian/WSL:

sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-base texlive-fonts-recommended \
  texlive-fonts-extra texlive-latex-extra

This installs all required LaTeX packages. No additional package installation should be needed.

macOS:

brew install --cask mactex-no-gui

The full mactex-no-gui (~4GB) includes all required packages. The smaller basictex (~100MB) may be missing fonts and packages -- if you use it, install missing packages with tlmgr:

sudo tlmgr update --self
sudo tlmgr install fontawesome5 fontawesome CormorantGaramond charter \
  ragged2e microtype lastpage bookmark tabularx enumitem titlesec fancyhdr

Important: The resume template uses fontawesome5 and the cover letter template uses fontawesome. These are separate packages -- both must be installed for full functionality.

<details> <summary>Troubleshooting LaTeX packages</summary>

To check if a specific package is installed:

kpsewhich fontawesome5.sty

If pdflatex fails with File 'X.sty' not found, install the missing package:

sudo tlmgr install <package-name>

If you don't have LaTeX installed and don't want to install it locally, you can still use the agent to generate the .tex files and compile them using Overleaf or another online LaTeX editor. </details>

Setup

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/NullSpace-BitCradle/ats-resume-agent.git
   cd ats-resume-agent

1. Check dependencies (optional but recommended):

   ./setup.sh

This checks for Claude Code and LaTeX, and offers to install anything missing.

1. Create your Master Career Document (choose one):

Option A -- Guided interview (recommended):

   Help me build my career document

The career-doc-builder agent will walk you through an interactive interview to produce a comprehensive 18-section MCD. If you have existing resumes, LinkedIn exports, or other career materials, it can ingest those as a starting point.

Option B -- Manual:

   cp examples/Master_Career_Document.md Master_Career_Document.md

Edit Master_Career_Document.md with your real career data. See the example file for the expected format and available features like agent notes and legacy sections.

Note: Master_Career_Document.md and Job_Description-*.md files in the project root are gitignored by default to prevent accidentally committing personal information. The example files in examples/ are tracked normally.

1. Start Claude Code in the project directory:

   claude

The agent definition in .claude/agents/ats-resume-writer.md is preconfigured -- you don't need to read or modify it to generate resumes.

Usage

Generate a Resume

Drop a job description file in the project root:

# Name it following the convention:
# Job_Description-[Company]-[Role].md

Then tell Claude:

Resume for the Example Corp file

or:

Resume and cover letter for the Example Corp file

The agent will:

1. Read your Master Career Document
2. Analyze the job description for keywords and requirements
3. Select the most relevant experience and skills
4. Generate a .tex file with ATS-optimized content
5. Compile it to PDF using pdflatex

Output files are saved to the output/ directory.

Review and Iterate

After generating a resume, you can ask for adjustments:

Make the summary more focused on leadership experience

Add the CloudBridge SSO migration project to the experience section

Can you review this resume? I'm not getting callbacks

Build or Update Your Career Document

The career-doc-builder agent guides you through creating a comprehensive Master Career Document via interactive interview:

Help me build my career document

It can also enrich an existing MCD:

Review my career document for gaps

Update my MCD with my new role

#### How the Career Document Builder Works

The agent runs a multi-phase interview that builds your career document section by section:

1. Intake -- Feed it existing resumes, LinkedIn exports, or any career materials you have. It extracts roles, skills, metrics, and dates as a baseline. Starting from scratch is fine too.
2. Identity & Positioning -- Establishes your target titles, value proposition, and writes 2-4 genuinely different professional summary angles.
3. Skills Inventory -- Walks through skill categories relevant to your field, suggests gaps, and separates current skills from legacy ones.
4. Work Experience -- The core of the interview. Goes role by role (most recent first), probing for metrics, suggesting common responsibilities you may have missed, and offering agent notes where context matters.
5. Supporting Sections -- Education, certifications, publications, compliance expertise, volunteer work, and positioning guidance.
6. Synthesis -- Revises your summaries with the full career context, curates a highlight reel of your strongest metrics, and delivers the final document.

The output is a single Markdown file with 18 structured sections. The interview typically takes 30-60 minutes depending on career complexity and how much existing material you provide. Once complete, you reuse this document every time you generate a resume -- no re-interviewing.

Project Structure

ats-resume-agent/
|-- README.md                 # This file
|-- LICENSE                   # MIT (project) + CC-BY-4 (LaTeX template)
|-- CLAUDE.md                 # Instructions for Claude Code (you don't need to edit this)
|-- setup.sh                  # Dependency checker and installer
|-- .gitignore                # Excludes output files and personal documents
|-- .claude/
|   `-- agents/
|       |-- ats-resume-writer.md   # Resume/cover letter generation agent
|       `-- career-doc-builder.md  # Interactive career document builder agent
|-- images/                        # Screenshots for README
|-- templates/
|   |-- resume-template.tex        # LaTeX resume template (CC-BY-4)
|   `-- cover-letter-template.tex  # LaTeX cover letter template
|-- examples/
|   |-- Master_Career_Document.md  # Example career doc with fake data
|   |-- Job_Description-Example_Corp-Senior_Engineer.md  # Example JD
|   `-- sample-output/
|       |-- resume-preview.pdf     # Sample resume PDF
|       `-- cover-letter-preview.pdf  # Sample cover letter PDF
`-- output/                        # Generated resumes go here (gitignored)

Master Career Document Format

The career-doc-builder agent produces a comprehensive 18-section MCD. You can also create one manually -- the resume writer agent handles both formats. Key sections:

See examples/Master_Career_Document.md for the full 18-section structure with all available sections.

Agent Notes

You can embed instructions for the agent directly in your career document:

> **Agent Note:** This project was collaborative -- do not attribute sole ownership.

The agent treats these as binding instructions and will respect them when generating content.

Legacy Section

Any content under a "Legacy & Historical Platforms" heading is automatically excluded from all generated resumes. Use this for outdated skills you want to keep on record but never include in applications.

Key Design Decisions

LaTeX over Word/PDF: LaTeX produces consistent, professional formatting and is ATS-compatible through Unicode glyph mapping (\pdfgentounicode=1). The PDF output is machine-readable by ATS systems despite custom fonts and styling.

Keyword-first content selection: The agent builds a keyword map from each job description and prioritizes matching content from your career document. Skills sections list job-description keywords first within each category.

One source of truth: All content comes from the Master Career Document. The agent never asks you for information during generation -- it reads the files and produces output.

Customization

Adjusting the Visual Design

The LaTeX templates in templates/ control the visual design:

• Colors: Edit the \definecolor lines in templates/resume-template.tex

  \definecolor{accentTitle}{HTML}{0e6e55}  % Name and section text
  \definecolor{accentText}{HTML}{0e6e55}   % Section headings
  \definecolor{accentLine}{HTML}{a16f0b}   % Horizontal rules

• Fonts: Uncomment one of the sans-serif options or keep the default serif (Garamond + Charter)
• Margins: Adjust the \addtolength values
• Bullet style: Change \renewcommand\labelitemi{--} to use a different bullet character

Adjusting Content Strategy

The agent's content selection strategy, quality standards, and action verb lists are all defined in .claude/agents/ats-resume-writer.md. You can modify these to match your preferences -- for example, changing the recency bias from 5-7 years to 10 years, or adjusting the page limit.

Cover Letter Tone

Edit the cover letter standards section in the agent definition to adjust tone, structure, or length preferences.

Model Settings

Both agents are configured to use the Sonnet model (model: sonnet in the agent frontmatter), which provides the best balance of speed, cost, and quality for this workflow. If you want to use a different model, edit the model: field in the agent definition files.

For the resume writer, Sonnet is recommended -- it follows the template commands reliably and respects the hard constraints. For the career document builder, Sonnet also works well for the conversational interview format.

If you find the agents occasionally deviating from instructions (adding unsolicited content, ignoring agent notes), try running with a fresh session (claude --resume no) to avoid context pollution from previous conversations.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

The LaTeX resume template (templates/resume-template.tex) is based on work by Michael Lustfield and is licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Acknowledgments

• Resume LaTeX template by Michael Lustfield (CC-BY-4.0)
• Built for use with Claude Code by Anthropic