Who This Course Is For
This course is for developers who want to get genuinely good at Claude Code – not just use it, but understand how it works and how to extend it. It's designed for our team at Cognito, but the principles apply to anyone building with Claude Code.
You don't need to be an expert developer. You do need to be comfortable in a terminal and willing to experiment. Whether you've never used AI for coding, you've dabbled with ChatGPT for code snippets, or you're already using Cursor or Copilot daily – this course takes you from wherever you are to confidently running Claude Code as part of your daily workflow.
What Claude Code Actually Is
Claude Code is a command-line tool that acts as an AI-powered software engineering partner. It can read your files, run commands, search your codebase, edit code, and work through problems autonomously. In AI terminology, this makes it – it doesn't just answer questions, it takes actions on your behalf.
The thing that trips most people up is that Claude Code is both a collaborator and an executor, and the best results come from using it as both. First, you discuss – brainstorm approaches, ask Claude to challenge your assumptions, have it reason about trade-offs. Because it has access to your full codebase, it's often a better planning partner than you might expect. Then, once you've aligned on a direction, you let it execute – writing code, running tests, iterating on failures, all without you needing to intervene at each step.
This is different from IDE extensions like Copilot or Cursor, which primarily respond to your cursor position and edits within individual files. Claude Code can work across your whole project autonomously. It's also different from Claude in the browser, which is great for discussion but can't actually see your codebase or run your tests.
Think of it as pair programming. You wouldn't hand a pair partner a task and walk away – you'd discuss the approach first, then one of you drives while the other navigates. Claude Code works the same way: discuss first, execute second.
The Agentic Loop
Language models can only process text. They can't directly read files or run commands. Claude Code bridges this gap through – a loop where the model decides what action to take, the system executes it, and the result feeds back into the model for its next decision.
graph LR
A[You describe a task] --> B[Claude plans an approach]
B --> C[Claude requests a tool action]
C --> D[System executes and returns result]
D --> E{Task complete?}
E -->|No| B
E -->|Yes| F[Claude presents the result]This loop is what makes Claude Code agentic. It can chain together dozens of tool calls – reading files to understand context, running tests to check its work, iterating on fixes – all without you intervening at each step.
Default Tools
Claude Code ships with a set of built-in tools:
| Tool | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Read | Read file contents |
| Edit | Make targeted edits to files |
| Write | Create new files |
| Bash | Run shell commands |
| Glob | Find files by pattern |
| Grep | Search file contents |
| WebFetch | Fetch and read web pages |
| WebSearch | Search the web |
| Task | Spawn subagents for parallel work |
These tools can be extended with (covered in a later module) to add capabilities like browser automation, database queries, and third-party API access.
How Claude Code Fits Alongside Other Tools
Most developers won't use Claude Code in isolation. It's worth understanding where it sits relative to other AI coding tools:
| Tool Type | Examples | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Inline completion | GitHub Copilot, Codeium | Quick single-line edits, boilerplate, staying in flow |
| IDE AI chat | Cursor, Continue | Understanding code, small edits, working within one file |
| Agentic CLI | Claude Code, Codex, Aider | Multi-file features, refactoring, autonomous execution |
Many developers use an IDE extension for moment-to-moment coding and Claude Code for larger tasks that benefit from autonomous, multi-step execution. They're complementary, not competing.
Claude Code vs the Agent SDK
| Claude Code | Agent SDK | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A finished CLI product you interact with | A toolkit for building your own agents |
| How you use it | Run claude in a terminal, have a conversation | Import the SDK, define agents in code, run programmatically |
| Extensibility | Commands, agents, MCPs, hooks, skills | Full programmatic control in TypeScript/Python |
| Target user | Developers who want an AI partner | Developers building AI-powered applications |
The same underlying model powers both. Claude Code is a polished product with a plugin ecosystem, while the Agent SDK gives you the building blocks to create your own AI-powered applications.
The Five Building Blocks
Claude Code's capabilities can be customised and extended through five building blocks:
- MCPs – External processes that give Claude new tools
- Commands – Slash commands you invoke explicitly
- Skills – Auto-triggered commands based on context
- Agents – Subagent definitions with specific roles
- Hooks – Event-driven scripts on lifecycle events
Everything in the extension ecosystem – every plugin, every custom workflow – is a combination of these five pieces. This course covers each one in depth, starting with the basics and building up to more advanced patterns.
Think of the five building blocks as LEGO pieces. Once you understand each piece, you can combine them however you like – from simple one-step automations to complex multi-agent workflows.
- Skipping the discussion phase. Don't jump straight to "do this." Discuss the approach with Claude first – it has your full codebase as context and can often spot issues you might miss. The time spent planning almost always saves time in the long run.
- Skipping tool call review when learning. When you're starting out, use Normal mode (not auto-accept) and read what Claude wants to do before approving each action. This builds your intuition for how Claude works and catches mistakes early. You can switch to auto-accept once you trust the pattern.
What's Next
The next module covers getting Claude Code installed, authenticated, and running. After that, we get into the practical skills that make it effective day-to-day: how to work with Claude effectively, managing context, and building custom workflows.