Getting Started with Claude Code: A practical guide for developers who want to ship from day one

You installed Claude Code. Now what? Getting Started with Claude Code takes you from installation to real productivity in a single afternoon. Skip the theory — go straight to writing code, generating tests, navigating legacy codebases, and shipping commits with an AI agent in your terminal.

Updated August 2026, based on Opus 5 and Sonnet 5

What you'll learn: How a real working session flows — from first prompt to merged PR How to write prompts that produce useful code on the first try How to point Claude Code at existing code: legacy projects, undocumented repos, inherited codebases How to generate tests automatically and maintain coverage without the usual excuses A complete Git workflow: branches, commits, conflict resolution, PR reviews How to configure CLAUDE.md so Claude follows your project's conventions A full chapter of recipes: problem, prompt, expected output, and what to tweak when it doesn't work 11 chapters. 100% hands-on. Every chapter includes real-world scenarios, copy-paste prompts, and honest explanations of what to adjust when things go sideways. These aren't toy examples — they're designed for your actual workflow.

The final chapter introduces agentic programming: chaining tasks, orchestrating multiple agents, and making the leap from user to architect of AI-powered workflows.

This book is for you if: You're a developer who installed Claude Code but hasn't found your groove yet You live in the terminal and use Git every day You want results on day one, not a lecture on how LLMs work You'd rather learn from real examples than scroll through reference docs Part of the Claude Code Guides series. This guide will help you build a solid foundation, avoid bad practices and anti-patterns, and become a more effective programmer before diving into the advanced techniques covered in our book Claude Code: Advanced Tips for Power Users .