Welcome: How to Use This Course

Claude Code at Work is a hands-on training course designed to help your entire team—engineers, data analysts, technical program managers, and other technical staff—integrate Claude Code into your daily workflow. Whether you're new to AI-powered development or looking to adopt Claude Code as a standard tool, this course will give you practical skills and best practices grounded in real team environments.

What You'll Learn

This course is organized into four practical modules:

1. Getting Started Install Claude Code, authenticate your account, start your first session, and understand how Claude works with your code. You'll learn the mental model: how Claude Code reads your project, explores your codebase, and proposes changes with your approval.

2. Everyday Productivity & Best Practices Master the most valuable day-to-day workflows: understanding new codebases quickly, fixing bugs efficiently, writing and testing code, refactoring safely, and documenting your work. Learn how to prompt effectively and get better results by being specific about what you want.

3. Team Workflows & Customization Set up a CLAUDE.md file with your team's standards and conventions. Use slash commands, skills, and hooks to automate repetitive tasks. Introduce Claude Code into your CI/CD pipelines and git workflows. Delegate research to subagents and coordinate multi-session work with worktrees.

4. Security, Governance & Safe Rollout Understand how to review AI-generated code for security and quality. Establish approval policies, audit trails, and cost controls. Plan a safe rollout across your organization, address common concerns, and build a culture of responsible AI use.

Who This Course Is For

This course assumes mixed technical backgrounds:

• Software engineers building and shipping production code
• Data engineers and analysts working with data pipelines and analysis
• Technical program managers and technical leads coordinating development
• Anyone with a real coding task they want to accomplish faster and better

You don't need deep command-line experience—we'll guide you through setup. You do need a willingness to try something new and a real project or problem to work on.

What to Expect

This course is hands-on and practical:

• Each module contains guided examples and real code tasks
• "Try it yourself" exercises let you practice immediately
• We focus on what works in the field, not theory
• Estimated time: ~3–4 hours across all modules, depending on depth

There is no exam. The capstone project is your proof of learning: shipping a real improvement (bug fix, feature, tests, or documentation) using Claude Code.

Prerequisites

Before you start, you'll need:

1. A computer where you can install Claude Code or access to the web app at https://claude.ai/code

   • macOS, Linux, Windows, or WSL all supported
   • A terminal or command prompt (don't worry if you're new to it—we provide guidance)

2. A Claude subscription or account

   • Claude Pro, Max, Team, or Enterprise subscription, or
   • Access via Claude Console, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud Agent Platform, or Microsoft Foundry

3. A real project to practice on

   • Your team's actual codebase, a personal project, or an open-source repo you contribute to
   • Sample repos (e.g., from GitHub) work too if you're learning
   • Git must be set up and accessible from your terminal

4. Roughly 30 minutes for installation and one session to get comfortable

How to Get the Most Out of This Course

Do the "Try It Yourself" exercises

Each module includes hands-on tasks. Even if you think you understand the concept, actually typing the commands and seeing Claude's output builds muscle memory and intuition.

Keep a real problem in mind

As you go through each module, think about a task you want Claude Code to help with: a bug you need to fix, tests you want to write, or documentation you want to improve. Use that task as your sandbox. When you reach the capstone, you'll ship that improvement.

Read the prompts, not just the results

Claude Code is conversational. Good prompting is a skill. Notice how the examples phrase requests—specific, structured, concrete. Practice that style.

Treat Claude as a colleague, not a black box

Claude will make mistakes. You review changes before committing. Understand why Claude proposed something, and refine your request if it's off. That feedback loop is where the real learning happens.

Use the documentation as a reference

We provide links to the official Claude Code docs throughout. Bookmark https://code.claude.com/docs/ and come back to it. The docs are your source of truth for the latest features.

What's Next?

Jump into Module 1: Getting Started to install Claude Code and run your first session. We'll walk you through every step. After the four modules, you'll tackle the Capstone Project, where you'll apply everything to ship a real improvement to a codebase you care about.

Welcome to Claude Code at Work. Let's build something better.