Introduction

Welcome to Claude Code in Action. This course is about using Claude Code as a daily driver — not as a party trick — so the goal here is to get you productive quickly and then push into the parts that separate occasional users from people who build real workflows around it.

The course is organised into four sections. First, you will build a clear mental model of what a coding assistant actually is and why tool use matters. Then you will see what makes Claude Code stand out against the rest of the field. From there, you will walk through Claude Code on a typical project and get hands-on with the techniques you will reach for every day. Finally, you will wrap up with the advanced pieces — hooks and the SDK — that let you tailor Claude Code to your own projects.

Your instructor is Stephen Grider, a Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic. By the end of the course, you will know how Claude Code works under the hood, how to steer it effectively, and how to extend it for your own workflow.