Introduction

Claude Code is Anthropic’s official CLI that brings Claude AI directly into your terminal for software engineering tasks.

Claude Code is an interactive CLI tool published by Anthropic as @anthropic-ai/claude-code. It lets you interact with Claude directly from your terminal to perform real software engineering work: editing files, running commands, searching codebases, managing git workflows, and more.

What problems does Claude Code solve?

Using a web-based LLM chatbot for coding requires you to copy-paste code back and forth, manually apply changes, and switch context constantly. Claude Code eliminates that friction by running inside your terminal, with direct access to your filesystem, shell, and version control. Claude can read your actual files, make edits, run tests, commit code, and handle multi-step workflows — all without leaving your editor or the command line.

Key capabilities

File editing

Read, write, and edit files across your project. Claude uses context-aware edits and can handle multiple files in a single task.

Bash commands

Execute shell commands, run tests, install packages, and interact with your development environment directly.

Code search

Search your codebase with glob patterns and regular expressions using built-in GlobTool and GrepTool capabilities.

Git workflows

Stage files, commit, create branches, inspect diffs, and manage pull requests without leaving the CLI.

Multi-agent tasks

Spawn parallel sub-agents (AgentTool) to tackle complex, multi-step engineering tasks concurrently.

MCP integration

Connect external tools and data sources via the Model Context Protocol. List resources, call tools, and authenticate with MCP servers from inside a session.

Hooks and automation

Attach lifecycle hooks to tool calls so you can enforce policies, log actions, or trigger external systems automatically.

Session management

Resume previous conversations, run tasks in the background, and manage multiple concurrent sessions.

How it differs from using an LLM chatbot

Chatbot	Claude Code
You copy-paste code in and out	Claude reads and writes your files directly
You run commands and paste output back	Claude runs commands and sees the output itself
Each message loses prior context	Sessions preserve full conversation history
No access to your git history or diffs	Claude can inspect commits, branches, and diffs
Single-threaded Q&A	Multi-agent: Claude can spawn sub-agents for parallel work
No external tool integrations	MCP servers connect Claude to databases, APIs, and more

How Claude Code is invoked

Claude Code exposes the claude binary. You can use it in two ways:

Interactive mode — a full REPL where you and Claude collaborate turn by turn:

claude

Non-interactive (-p / --print) mode — run a single prompt and get output to stdout, suitable for scripting and CI pipelines:

claude -p "what files are in this directory?"

Next steps

Quickstart

Install Claude Code and run your first session in minutes.

Installation

Full installation guide including authentication options and platform notes.