Claude Code, made simple.

01What is Claude Code?

An AI agent that lives in your terminal — it reads your files, writes code and runs commands while you review and approve. The mental model that makes everything click.

02Install & First Run

Install Claude Code with one npm command, log in with your Claude account, start it inside your project folder, and say your first thing to it — in plain English.

03VS Code Setup & Day-One Safety

Run Claude in VS Code's terminal, review every AI change as a diff in Source Control, and set two guardrails — branch protection and a secrets-proof .gitignore — before any AI touches your repo.

04The Essential Commands

The twelve controls that cover 95% of daily use — /init, /clear, /compact, Plan Mode, Esc, @file and friends — in one reference table, plus the five to learn first.

05Plan Mode & Interrupting

Make Claude propose a plan before it touches a single file, review that plan like a pro, and press Esc the moment things head the wrong way. Thirty seconds of plan review saves thirty minutes of wrong code.

06Context, Sessions & Cost

Why long sessions make Claude slower and pricier, the one-task-per-session habit, /clear vs /compact, reopening old sessions, and the /rewind undo button.

07CLAUDE.md — the Project's Brain

The one file Claude reads at the start of every session. Generate it with /init, then edit it lean: stack, folder map, key paths, conventions, commands and standing rules — in under 60 lines.

08STATUS, TODO & DECISIONS

Chat evaporates, files persist. A three-file docs/ system — STATUS.md handoffs, a TODO.md task queue and an append-only DECISIONS.md — gives Claude perfect recall between sessions.

09Starting a Brand-New Project

The Initialization Prompt: scaffold a project from an empty folder with the memory system born in — plan approved first, hello-world running, CLAUDE.md and docs/ created, first commit made.

10The Universal Prompt Shape

Every good Claude Code prompt has the same five parts — CONTEXT, GOAL, CONSTRAINTS, VERIFY, FINISH. Learn the shape once and every prompt you will ever need is just this shape filled in.

11Feature & Bug-Fix Prompts

The two workhorses: a Daily Feature prompt that builds one TODO item at a time in your style, and a Bug-Fix prompt that forces a diagnosed root cause before any code changes.

12Re-Entry & End-of-Session Prompts

The paired handoff system: close every session with a two-minute STATUS.md handoff, then return days or weeks later to a twenty-second briefing — without re-reading the codebase.

13Teach-Me & Review Prompts

Become a better developer, not just a faster one: a Teacher-mode prompt that explains what got built and why, and a review prompt that surfaces what a senior dev would flag.

14Skills & Plugins

Skills are markdown instruction packs that teach Claude specialized workflows; plugins are the installable packages that bundle them. The official marketplace, a six-plugin starter set, and writing your own micro-skill in ten minutes.

15MCP Servers

Give Claude real capabilities beyond your files — browse GitHub, drive a real browser, query a database — with the Model Context Protocol. The four servers worth knowing early, and the discipline rules that keep it all safe and fast.

16The Session Ritual & Ten Rules

The same boring steps before, during and after every session — plus the ten rules to tape above your monitor, and the smallest-step path onward when static sites start feeling small.

17Claude Code Cheat Sheet

A one-page reference: day-one setup, the in-session controls, session recovery, plugins and MCP install commands, the prompt library index, panic buttons and cost hygiene. Bookmark it.