Set up your machine in 20 minutes.

Step 0 — meet the terminal

The terminal is a text box for talking to your computer. You type a command, press Enter, the computer answers. That's the entire interaction model. It has no icons because it predates icons, not because it's for geniuses.

• Mac: press Cmd + Space, type Terminal, press Enter.
• Windows: press the Windows key, type PowerShell, press Enter.

You'll see a mostly-empty window with a blinking cursor. It's waiting for you to type. Try one command to break the ice — type this and press Enter:

echo hello

It prints hello back. Congratulations — you've used a terminal. Here's the whole interaction, animated, so you know exactly what to expect:

Simulated run — your terminal's colors will differ, the behavior won't.

Everything else is just different words in the same box.

One mechanical note before the next step, because it stalls more beginners than anything technical: pasting. On a Mac, Cmd+V pastes like anywhere else. In Windows PowerShell, Ctrl+V works in recent versions — and if nothing shows up, a plain right-click pastes. Long pasted commands can look alarming spread across the window; that's normal.

Step 1 — the honest money part

Claude Code needs a Claude account with a paid plan — the entry tier runs about the price of a streaming subscription per month. That's the one real cost in this course, so I'm putting it here in step 1 rather than letting you find out mid-install. If you're on the fence: you can cancel a monthly plan after building your project, and you'll have spent less than one hour of any agency's billing rate.

Create your account at claude.ai and pick a paid plan. Remember the email you sign up with — you'll sign in with it in step 3.

Step 2 — install Claude Code

One command, into the terminal you just met. Pick your machine's card — running the wrong one is the classic mistake:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Text will scroll by for a minute — that's the installer talking to itself, not something you need to read. When it stops and hands the cursor back, you're done.

...
✓ Claude Code installed
Run claude to get started
you@your-machine ~ % ▊

Step 3 — first run and sign-in

Close your terminal window and open a fresh one (this makes sure the new install is picked up — it's the "turn it off and on again" of installs, and it works). Then type:

claude

The first time, it walks you through signing in — it'll open your browser, you approve with the Claude account from step 1, and you're connected. After that, you land at a prompt that's waiting for instructions. Say hello if you want; it will answer. It's a very polite piece of software.

✻ Welcome to Claude Code

  /help for help

╭──────────────────────────────────╮
│ > Try "say hello"                │
╰──────────────────────────────────╯

To leave, type /exit or just close the window. Nothing needs to be shut down properly. Nothing breaks.

If something didn't work

• "command not found: claude" — you skipped the fresh-terminal part of step 3. Close the window, open a new one, try again. This fixes it almost every time.
• The installer complained about permissions — on a work-managed computer, IT may block installs. This one needs a computer you're allowed to install things on.
• Anything else — here's a trick you'll use for the rest of your building life: paste the exact error message into claude.ai in your browser and ask "I got this error installing Claude Code — what do I do?" Debugging by asking is a real technique. It's most of Lesson 6.

That's the whole setup

Installed, signed in, answered. You now have a working AI coding agent on your machine — which puts you ahead of most people who post about AI all day. In the next lesson you'll give it a folder and watch it build something in front of you.