Your First 10 Minutes: Saying Hi and Getting Something Done

Enough theory — let's open it up and feel how this works. You don't need to understand any of the technical bits yet. You just need to see the rhythm.

Getting started (one time): All you need is a Claude account — the same kind you'd use to chat with Claude on the web. Once you have that, you install Claude Code with a single line in your terminal: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code. Then you type claude to launch it, sign in when it asks, and you're in. When it's ready, you'll see a friendly prompt waiting for you — a blinking cursor next to a > symbol — that's your invitation to start typing.

Where Claude Code lives: it sits inside your code editor (or a terminal window). Think of it as a chat box that happens to be wired into your actual files and computer. You type a request; it works in the real project.

The loop you'll use forever:

You ask in plain English — "Create a simple one-page site that says who we are."
It proposes or just does the work — creating files, writing the code.
You review the result and ask for the next change.

That's it. Ask → review → repeat. You're the director; it's the crew.

The loop you'll use forever — you ask, it builds it, you review, then ask for the next change

A quick note on control: Claude Code can act on its own — sometimes it'll show you a plan and wait for your okay, and sometimes it'll just go ahead and make the change. Don't be alarmed when it simply does things; that's normal. There's a setting that controls how often it checks with you first, from "ask me before every step" to "go ahead and work, I'll review after." You don't need to touch it today — just know the dial exists, and you can turn it up anytime you want a closer look before it acts.

Your first win: ask it to make something tiny and real — a short "About Us" page, a list, a simple calculator. Watch it go from your sentence to an actual thing in seconds.

▶️ Try this

Open Claude Code and type one true sentence about something small you'd like to exist. Don't overthink the wording. Watch what it does — and notice the back-and-forth rhythm between you and the crew.