What is Claude Code? Everything You Need to Know

Claude Code: The AI That Codes With You

Claude Code is an agentic AI coding tool created by Anthropic — the AI safety company behind Claude. Unlike traditional code assistants that offer simple autocomplete suggestions, Claude Code operates as an autonomous agent that can understand your entire codebase, plan complex changes, and execute them across multiple files.

It’s not a plugin or an extension. It’s a full-fledged coding partner that lives in your terminal, IDE, and CI/CD pipelines.

How Claude Code Works

When you launch Claude Code in a project directory, it:

1. Analyzes your codebase — Maps the project structure, understands dependencies, reads configuration files
2. Listens to your request — You describe what you want in natural language
3. Creates a plan — Breaks the task into manageable steps, showing its reasoning
4. Executes changes — Modifies files, runs commands, tests results
5. Iterates — Fixes any issues and verifies the outcome

This “agentic” approach means Claude Code doesn’t just suggest code — it does the work.

Key Features

Deep Codebase Awareness

Claude Code uses agentic search to map and understand your entire project. It knows your:

• File structure and architecture
• Package dependencies
• Coding conventions and patterns
• API endpoints and data flows
• Test structure

No manual context needed. Just point it at a directory and start coding.

Built-in Tools

Claude Code comes with essential tools out of the box:

• File operations — Read, write, create, and modify files
• Search — Find code, trace references, locate definitions
• Execution — Run commands, scripts, and tests
• Web access — Fetch documentation, check APIs
• Git management — Commit, diff, branch, merge

Multi-File Editing

One of Claude Code’s biggest strengths: it can make coordinated changes across multiple files. Need to:

• Add a new API endpoint with controller, model, routes, and tests?
• Refactor a class and update all its imports?
• Rename a variable across the entire codebase?

Claude Code handles it in a single task.

Structured Problem-Solving

Instead of dumping code, Claude Code shows its thinking process:

1. Analyzes the problem
2. Lists what it will do
3. Explains its approach
4. Executes step by step
5. Reports results

This transparency makes it easy to review and trust its changes.

Where Claude Code Runs

Claude Code is available across multiple interfaces:

Interface	Description
Terminal / CLI	Primary interface — claude command
VS Code	Full IDE integration
JetBrains IDEs	IntelliJ, WebStorm, PyCharm, etc.
Web	Browser-based access via claude.ai
Desktop	Native desktop application
GitHub Actions	Automated code review and generation
GitLab CI/CD	Pipeline integration
Slack	Team collaboration interface

Extending Claude Code

CLAUDE.md

Create a CLAUDE.md file in your project root to provide persistent context:

# My Project
- TypeScript + React
- Always use named exports
- Tests required for all new features

MCP Servers

Connect Claude Code to external services using the Model Context Protocol:

• Databases
• APIs
• Documentation
• Custom tools

Skills

Create reusable knowledge and workflows that Claude Code can invoke for specialized tasks.

Subagents

Launch isolated agents for specific subtasks that return summaries to the main session.

What Can You Build With Claude Code?

Developers use Claude Code for:

• Feature development — Describe a feature, Claude Code builds it
• Bug fixing — Paste an error, Claude Code traces and fixes it
• Code review — Get AI-powered feedback on your changes
• Refactoring — Modernize legacy code safely
• Testing — Generate comprehensive test suites
• Documentation — Auto-generate docs from code
• DevOps — Write CI/CD configs, Docker files, deployment scripts

Pricing

Claude Code is included with your Claude subscription:

Plan	Price	Best For
Pro	$20/month	Individual developers
Max	$100-200/month	Power users, heavy usage
Teams	Custom	Team collaboration
Enterprise	Custom	Organization-wide deployment

Visit claude.ai/pricing for current plans.

Getting Started

Installation takes less than 30 seconds:

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

That’s it. Three commands and you’re coding with AI.

Learn More

• Install Claude Code — Full installation guide
• Claude Code Tips and Tricks — Power user techniques
• Claude Code vs GitHub Copilot — How it compares
• Claude Code for Beginners — Step-by-step first session
• Anthropic Official Docs — Technical documentation