Claude Code Tutorial for Beginners – Setup Guide

You’ve probably come across the term ‘vibe coding’ and noticed people vibe coding their way to build a full app without writing a single code. If you’re reading this, I would assume you also want to achieve the same.

Claude Code is a great option for vibe coding. In fact, I personally no longer use the term ‘vibe coding’ and prefer to say I am a ‘Claude Coder’. Claude Code is such as powerful tool and once you get the hang of it, it will give you the superpower to build that app idea you’ve had in mind for ages.

So where and how do we start? This article will take you through step-by-step on how to setup Claude Code on your computer so you’ll be ready to start Claude Coding 🚀

Sign up to Claude

If you don’t already have a Claude account, go to claude.com and setup your account.

I suggest getting a Pro plan to get started. Claude Code takes up significant amount of tokens and Free plan won’t last you long enough.

Setup IDE (Cursor)

An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is required to run Claude Code. There are multiple IDE options to choose from and I am using my favourite which is Cursor.

Go to cursor.com and download the application on your computer.

Creating a Project

Open Cursor and you will see this screen below. Click ‘Open project‘ and create a new folder.

Now you will see this dark and empty screen.

Let’s open a terminal by going to the navigation bar -> Terminal -> New Terminal.

Go to Claude Code DocsClaude Code overview – Claude Code Docs and copy the code appropriate to your OS (I’m using macOS).

Paste the code into the terminal.

You’ve now installed Claude Code, well done!👏

Lauch Claude Code

Type ‘claude’ into the terminal.

claude

You can navigate using arrow keys and press enter to select.

(First time only) Login to Claude. When you first install Claude, it will ask you to login. Follow the instructions by clicking the link provided and login from a browser.