Claude Code overview

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Anthropic·docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code

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High quality. Established institution or organization with editorial oversight and accountability.

Rating inherited from publication venue: Anthropic

Official documentation for Anthropic's Claude Code product; relevant to discussions of agentic AI deployment, tool use, and the practical safety considerations of AI systems acting autonomously in developer environments.

Metadata

Importance: 35/100documentationreference

Summary

Claude Code is Anthropic's agentic coding assistant designed to work directly in developer terminals, capable of understanding codebases, writing and editing code, running tests, and executing multi-step software engineering tasks autonomously. It represents Anthropic's deployment of AI agents for real-world software development workflows.

Key Points

•Claude Code is an agentic tool that operates in the terminal, enabling autonomous multi-step coding tasks like editing files, running tests, and managing git operations.
•Designed to understand entire codebases contextually, allowing developers to delegate complex software engineering tasks rather than just single completions.
•Represents a practical deployment of agentic AI capabilities, raising considerations around tool use, autonomy, and human oversight in software workflows.
•Built by Anthropic as a direct product application of Claude models, bridging AI safety research and real-world developer tooling.
•Supports iterative task completion with the ability to search codebases, run shell commands, and interact with development environments.

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Getting started

Claude Code overview

[Getting started](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/overview) [Build with Claude Code](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/sub-agents) [Deployment](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/third-party-integrations) [Administration](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/setup) [Configuration](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings) [Reference](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/cli-reference) [Resources](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/legal-and-compliance)

On this page

- [Get started](https://code.claude.com/docs#get-started)
- [What you can do](https://code.claude.com/docs#what-you-can-do)
- [Use Claude Code everywhere](https://code.claude.com/docs#use-claude-code-everywhere)
- [Next steps](https://code.claude.com/docs#next-steps)

Claude Code is an AI-powered coding assistant that helps you build features, fix bugs, and automate development tasks. It understands your entire codebase and can work across multiple files and tools to get things done.

## [](https://code.claude.com/docs\#get-started)  Get started

Choose your environment to get started. Most surfaces require a [Claude subscription](https://claude.com/pricing?utm_source=claude_code&utm_medium=docs&utm_content=overview_pricing) or [Anthropic Console](https://console.anthropic.com/) account. The Terminal CLI and VS Code also support [third-party providers](https://code.claude.com/docs/en/third-party-integrations).

- Terminal

- VS Code

- Desktop app

- Web

- JetBrains


The full-featured CLI for working with Claude Code directly in your terminal. Edit files, run commands, and manage your entire project from the command line.To install Claude Code, use one of the following methods:

- Native Install (Recommended)

- Homebrew

- WinGet


**macOS, Linux, WSL:**

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

**Windows PowerShell:**

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```
irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex
```

**Windows CMD:**

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```
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.cmd -o install.cmd && install.cmd && del install.cmd
```

**Windows requires [Git for Windows](https://git-scm.com/downloads/win).** Install it first if you don’t have it.

Native installations automatically update in the background to keep you on the latest version.

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```
brew install --cask claude-code
```

Homebrew inst

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Resource ID: 93109952a74302d8 | Stable ID: NDZkNDdmMz