Set up Claude Code

This is the one part of the guide that’s pure setup. It takes about thirty minutes, you do it once, and then you never think about it again. You’ll need a Mac (macOS 13 or later) and the paid Claude plan from what Claude Code is — the free plan doesn’t include Claude Code.

We install the command-line tool first, then VS Code, then the extension that ties them together. Take the steps in order and you won’t hit the chicken-and-egg problems people run into when they do it the other way around.

Meet the Terminal

The Terminal is a plain text window where you type a command and press Return. That’s the whole idea. Open it with Spotlight (Cmd + Space, type “Terminal”, Return).

You only need a handful of commands, ever:

• pwd — “print working directory,” i.e. where am I right now?
• ls — list the files in the current folder.
• cd foldername — move into a folder; cd .. moves back up one.

One Mac-specific gotcha: if a folder name has a space in it, wrap the whole path in quotes — cd "Claude Code Projects". That’s it. You do not need to learn shell scripting, pipes, or anything else to use this guide. When a step gives you a command, you’ll copy it, paste it into the Terminal, and press Return.

Install Claude Code

Paste this into the Terminal and press Return:

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

This downloads and installs the tool (to ~/.local/bin/) and keeps itself updated from then on. When it finishes, confirm it’s there:

claude --version

If you see a version number, you’re installed. If you instead get command not found, skip down to If something went wrong — it’s a common, quick fix.

Sign in

Start Claude Code by typing its name:

claude

The first time you run it, it opens your web browser to a sign-in page. Log in with the same account as your paid plan, and the browser hands you back to the Terminal — authenticated. (If no browser opens on its own, press c to copy the sign-in link and paste it into a browser yourself.) This happens once; your Mac remembers it afterward.

Screenshot to add

The browser sign-in page on first launch.

Note

If sign-in says your plan doesn’t include Claude Code, you’re on the free tier. Claude Code needs a paid plan (Pro or Max) — see what you’ll need.

If something went wrong

Two snags account for almost every failed setup.

command not found: claude. The tool installed fine, but your Terminal doesn’t yet know where to find it. Tell it once, then reload:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Now try claude --version again. (Quitting and reopening the Terminal does the same thing as that second line.)

Sign-in failed or keeps looping. The clean fix is to start over: type /logout inside Claude Code, quit it, run claude again, and sign in fresh. (If the browser never opens, press c to copy the sign-in link — same trick as above.)

Caution

If you see dyld: cannot load or Abort trap: 6, your macOS is too old. Claude Code needs macOS 13 or later (Apple menu → About This Mac to check).

Install VS Code

You can run Claude Code entirely in the Terminal, but it’s far nicer with a home base. VS Code (Visual Studio Code) is a free editor from Microsoft. It’s an IDE — think of that as one window that holds your files, a text editor, and a Terminal all together, so you’re not juggling separate apps.

Go to code.visualstudio.com, download the Mac version, unzip it, and drag Visual Studio Code into your Applications folder. The first time you open it, macOS may ask you to confirm — click Open.

Screenshot to add

Dragging Visual Studio Code into the Applications folder.

Add the Claude Code extension

Inside VS Code, open the Extensions panel (Cmd + Shift + X), search for Claude Code, and click Install on the result published by Anthropic.

The extension is what gives you the nice parts: it shows Claude’s proposed changes as a side-by-side diff (old in red, new in green) you can approve or reject, and lets you point at files by name.

Note

The extension and the command-line tool are two separate things. The extension’s chat panel ships with its own copy, but when you run claude in VS Code’s built-in Terminal — which is how this guide works — it uses the standalone tool you installed first. That’s why we did the Terminal install before this step.

A quick tour of the window

You only need three parts of VS Code to start:

• The Explorer (the file list down the left side) — your folder’s contents.
• The editor (the big area in the middle) — where a file’s text shows when you click it.
• The integrated Terminal (a panel along the bottom) — open it with Terminal → New Terminal, or the Ctrl + ` shortcut. This is where you’ll type claude.

One more thing to know: File → Open Folder sets which folder you’re working in. Whatever folder you open is the only place Claude looks unless you tell it otherwise — which matters more than it sounds, and we lean on it in the next chapter.

Screenshot to add

The VS Code window with the Explorer, editor, and integrated Terminal labeled.

One thing to settle before you use real data

The practice folder in the next chapter is safe by design, but it’s worth knowing the ground rule now, because the relevant choice is made here at setup.

Your plan and your data

Anything Claude reads is sent over the network to do its work — it doesn’t all stay on your Mac. Two habits keep you out of trouble:

• Check your data-sharing setting. As of mid-2026, on the consumer plans (Pro, Max), Anthropic can use your conversations to improve its models when data-sharing is turned on. Open your account’s privacy settings and turn it off if you’d rather it didn’t — and since these policies change, check the current settings page rather than taking this paragraph’s word for it.
• Keep confidential data out for now. Until you’ve worked through the data-privacy chapter, don’t point Claude at IRB-governed data, unpublished manuscripts, student records, or raw datasets. Practice on things you could post publicly.

A later chapter covers de-identification and the plan, training, and retention details in full — this is just the part you can’t skip on day one.

That’s the whole setup. Next, you’ll run your first session — make a safe practice folder, ask Claude a question, and watch it work.