Build with Claude Code: Basics

Install Claude Code, run your first commands, and ship your first project — no prior experience needed.

Claude Code is a command-line coding agent from Anthropic that pair-programs with you inside your own terminal. It reads your files, runs commands, edits code, and can spin up whole features while you watch. People who’ve used it describe it as "pairing with a senior engineer who never gets tired" — and in this session, you’ll see why. This is the first session in the Build with Claude Code series. It’s aimed at complete beginners. If you’ve never opened a terminal before, you’ll be fine. If you’re already a working developer curious about agentic coding tools, you’ll get the full mental model plus the install and billing plumbing out of the way in one sitting — and walk away with a real starting point. By the end of the 90 minutes you will: • Understand what Claude Code is, how it’s different from a chatbot, and why it’s worth learning whether you’ve never written a line of code or you ship for a living. • Have Claude Code installed, authenticated, and running on your own machine. • Know how access and billing actually work — what you pay for, what happens under the hood, and how to keep costs predictable. • Have built your first working project with Claude Code, end to end, that you can keep and extend after the session. How the session runs: we start with 20 minutes on context — what Claude Code actually is, what it replaces, and what it enables. Then we install it together, handle authentication, and explore the interface. The back half is hands-on: you’ll build a small but real project — pick your own idea or use one of the starter prompts — and leave the session with something you’ve actually made. Bring your laptop, charged. That’s it.