Getting started · Claude Code
Claude Code, for people who have never written a line of code.
Everything you need installed, in order, with the reason for each one. Budget an hour the first time. You will not need it again.
What you are actually setting up.
Four things, and it helps to know which is which before you start, because the error messages all assume you do.
An account with Anthropic, which is what you pay for. An editor, which is the window you work in. Claude Code itself, which is the agent. And a handful of small tools that the agent uses to do real work, the way a word processor needs fonts installed.
Nothing here asks you to learn programming. You will paste a few lines into a black box and press Enter. If a line does not work, the last section of this page has the fix.
Read this before you spend an hour
Claude Code needs a paid Claude plan. Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise, or a Console account. The free claude.ai tier does not include it, and there is no way to find that out until the login step fails. Sort the account first.
You also need macOS 13 or later, or Windows 10 version 1809 or later. If your Mac is older than about 2017 and has never been updated, check before you begin.
Why we tell beginners to install VS Code first.
Claude Code runs perfectly well in a bare terminal, and plenty of experienced developers use it that way. We do not recommend that if this is your first time, and the reason has nothing to do with the agent.
A terminal shows you nothing. It is a black rectangle with a blinking cursor. When Claude says it edited three files, a terminal gives you no way to see those files, no way to look at what changed, and no way to undo it. You are trusting an agent you cannot watch.
Visual Studio Code is a free, normal application. Your project appears as a folder in a sidebar. When Claude changes a file you see the change highlighted, line by line, and you can reject it. Copy and paste work with a mouse. The terminal lives in a panel at the bottom of the same window, so nothing is hidden behind another app.
There is also an official extension that puts Claude in a proper panel: you review its plan before it acts, you point at files by name, and past conversations stay in tabs. For a first-timer that difference is the difference between finishing and giving up.
The install, in order.
Do these top to bottom. Each step assumes the one above it worked. Commands go into the terminal, which after step 2 lives inside VS Code.
Install Visual Studio Code
Download it from code.visualstudio.com, open the file, and drag it into Applications on a Mac or run the installer on Windows. It is free and made by Microsoft. Open it once so it finishes setting itself up.
Then open its terminal: the menu is View, then Terminal. A panel appears at the bottom with a blinking cursor. That panel is where every command below goes.
Give your computer the basic build tools
On a Mac, one command installs the standard developer tools, including Git, which is how code is downloaded and versioned. A dialog will pop up; click Install and wait. It is a large download.
$ xcode-select --install
Then install Homebrew, which is how you install almost everything else on a Mac afterwards. It will ask for your password and explain what it is about to do.
$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
At the end Homebrew prints two or three lines under a heading like Next
steps. Those lines are not decoration. Copy and run them, or the
brew command will not exist in new terminal windows. This is the single
most common place a first install goes wrong.
On Windows, install Git for Windows and click Next through every screen. You do not need to learn Git. It is there so Claude Code can run ordinary commands.
You do not need to install Ruby
A lot of older advice says you do, because Homebrew used to be written around it. Homebrew's installer is a plain shell script now, and macOS already includes what it needs. Skip it.
Install Claude Code
On a Mac or Linux, paste this into the terminal panel and press Enter:
$ curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
On Windows, use PowerShell. You are in PowerShell if the line starts with
PS C:\, and in CMD if it does not.
$ irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex
Check that it worked. This should print a version number:
$ claude --version
If it says command not found, jump to the last section on this page. It
is a one-line fix and it catches almost everybody.
Add the VS Code extension and sign in
In VS Code press Cmd+Shift+X on a Mac or Ctrl+Shift+X on
Windows to open Extensions, search for Claude Code, and click Install. You need
VS Code 1.94 or newer, which any fresh download will be.
Open the panel and sign in with your Claude account. A browser window opens; approve it and come back. No API key, no billing setup: the paid plan you already have is the login.
Cmd+Esc or Ctrl+Esc jumps between your files and Claude's
prompt box. It is the shortcut you will use most.
Connect GitHub
GitHub is where the systems live and where your own work can be backed up. The
command line tool for it is gh, and it handles the login for you so you
never deal with keys or tokens.
$ brew install gh $ gh auth login
Answer the prompts: GitHub.com, HTTPS, yes to authenticate Git, and Login with a web
browser. It shows you an eight character code, opens a browser, and you paste the code
in. On Windows install it from
cli.github.com and then run
gh auth login the same way.
Install what a system asks for
Every context system says what it needs. Most need nothing. Some need a language runtime, because that is what the system's scripts are written in.
Python, for systems that read and write spreadsheets or documents. Many repos ship a requirements file listing exactly what to install, and one command installs all of it:
$ pip3 install -r claude-code-tooling-requirements.txt
Our analyst response system's file, for example, lists three libraries for reading Excel workbooks, PowerPoint decks and Word documents. You never install those by hand or by name. You run the line above from inside the folder and it does the lot.
Node, for systems that generate images, icons or video. Install it once with
brew install node and forget about it.
If you are not sure, do nothing yet. Clone the system, open it, and ask Claude what do I need installed to run this? It can read the repo and tell you.
Settings worth changing on day one.
These are the small frustrations that make people quit in week one. All of them are one
setting. In VS Code, open settings with Cmd+, or Ctrl+, and
paste the setting name into the search box.
terminal.integrated.macOptionClickForcesSelection and Option+click gives
you ordinary line selection again.
/terminal-setup once inside Claude Code. It teaches VS Code that
Shift+Enter means a new line. Ctrl+J also works everywhere with no setup.
terminal.integrated.macOptionIsMeta to true. Terminals do not pass
the Option key through by default.
"preferredNotifChannel": "terminal_bell" to
~/.claude/settings.json and you get a sound instead.
CLAUDE_CODE_BS_AS_CTRL_BACKSPACE to 0.
/tui fullscreen. It switches to a steadier way of drawing the screen
and remembers the choice.
The five things to know before your first session.
/clear starts a fresh conversation, which is worth doing when you change task.When something goes wrong.
Four errors account for most first installs. None of them means you did anything wrong.
command not found: claude$ echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc $ source ~/.zshrc
brew: command not foundNext steps lines Homebrew printed at the end of its
install. Scroll back up in the terminal, find them, and run them.
'irm' is not recognizedWin+X, and choose Windows
PowerShell or Terminal.
claude doctor. It checks the installation and settings and prints
what is wrong with suggested fixes, without starting a session.
One habit worth forming immediately
When something breaks, paste the error into Claude and ask what it means. It can read your files, check your setup and usually fix it. The agent you just installed is also the best help desk you have for installing it.
Install steps here were checked against Anthropic's documentation on 21 August 2026. Claude Code ships often, so if a command has changed, the official setup page is the source of truth.