Installing Claude Code

Claude Code is the AI-powered CLI tool that powers our development workflow. It needs to be installed globally via npm before it can be used inside VS Code.

Prerequisites

You need Node.js (version 18 or later) installed on your system.

Check if Node.js is installed:

node --version

If not installed, download it from https://nodejs.org (LTS version recommended) or install via a package manager:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install node

# Ubuntu/Debian
curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt install -y nodejs

# Windows (winget)
winget install OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS

Install Claude Code

Install the CLI globally:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Authenticate

Run Claude Code once to authenticate:

claude

This opens a browser window where you sign in with your Anthropic account. After authentication, the CLI stores your credentials locally.

Verify Installation

claude --version

This should print the installed version number. You are now ready to activate Claude Code inside VS Code.