Getting started with Claude Code

A friend of mine with a Claude Pro plan opened the Claude app on his iPad, tapped the button marked </>, and got asked to sign in to GitHub. He doesn’t write code and has never had a GitHub account, so he came to me with one question: “WTF?” Plenty of people stop at that same screen, having heard for months that Claude Code builds apps and organizes files. This guide covers what Claude Code is and which door to walk through first, whether you write software or not.

Chat and Claude Code

Claude chat, the conversation at claude.ai or in the phone app, answers questions and can hand you a finished file to download, a slide deck built from a document you upload, for example. Each exchange is a round trip, though. You upload, Claude returns a new copy, and the next change means uploading again.

Claude Code works on files where they live, on your own computer or, in one case covered below, a computer in Anthropic’s cloud. Anthropic’s documentation describes it as a tool that “reads your codebase, edits files, runs commands, and integrates with your development tools.” Point it at a folder and it reads everything in it, changes files in place, runs programs, and keeps going until the task is done, asking your permission along the way. It was built for code. But a folder of notes works just as well, because to Claude Code a project is a folder of files and nothing more.

The desktop app also carries Cowork, Anthropic’s take on the same idea for everyday work instead of code. If the goal is “keep my notes organized” and not “build me a program,” start there.

Where Claude Code runs

All of these run the same Claude Code underneath. What changes is whose computer does the work.

Where What it needs Good for
Desktop app, Code tab The Claude app for Mac or Windows and a paid plan Anyone who would rather click than type commands
Terminal A one-line install, then typing claude in a folder People comfortable with a command line
Code editors The extension for VS Code, Cursor, or a JetBrains editor Programmers who live in their editor
Web and mobile claude.ai/code or the </> tab in the Claude app, plus a GitHub account Programmers whose code already lives on GitHub

The desktop app is the easiest start. Install it, sign in, click the Code tab, and choose a folder; Claude Code comes built in, with nothing else to install. You need a Claude subscription for the app. Most of the other routes need one too.

Why the phone and tablet ask for GitHub

When you start a new task from </> on a phone or iPad, Claude Code doesn’t run on that device at all. It runs on a computer in Anthropic’s cloud that starts out empty. So before it can do anything it copies a project from GitHub, and when it’s done it sends the changes back there for you to review. Anthropic’s cloud quickstart says so in one line: “You’ll need a GitHub repository to get started.”

For a programmer whose code is already on GitHub, that’s a convenience. For my friend it was a dead end dressed up as an error message. Anthropic is rolling out a way around it. Projects, in public beta on Pro and Max plans, can work from documents you upload instead of a GitHub repository. Not every account has it yet; if you don’t see Projects in the Code tab’s sidebar, it hasn’t reached you. Until then, skip that button. Use chat for one-off jobs, or set Claude up on a Mac or PC and reach it from the tablet, as described further down.

A first session in the desktop app

Use a practice folder the first time. Claude Code can change anything in the folder you give it. An empty one keeps experiments away from your tax returns.

  1. Download the Claude app from claude.com/download and sign in.
  2. Make a new, empty folder called Claude Practice. On a Mac, put it in iCloud Drive (it’s in the Finder sidebar), so a phone or iPad can open the same files later.
  3. Click the Code tab and open that folder.
  4. Ask for something small and concrete: “Create a packing list for a three-day beach trip as a file called packing-list.md.”
  5. When Claude asks permission to create the file, read what it says it will do, then approve it.
  6. Open the folder in Finder or File Explorer. The file is sitting there like any other.
  7. Ask for a change, “Add a section for a rainy day,” and watch it edit the same file in place.

That last step is the part chat can’t do.

Using it from a phone or tablet

A computer that stays on can do the work while you steer from the couch, or from a vacation rental on bad guest Wi-Fi. Remote Control connects the Claude app on a phone or iPad to a session running on your own Mac or PC. In the desktop app’s Code tab, type /remote-control in the message box. Then open the Claude app on the iPad, tap Code, and pick that session from the list. If you’d rather not type the command every time, the desktop app can connect every new session on its own (Settings, then Claude Code, then “Connect new sessions to Remote Control”). Permission questions get forwarded to the iPad, where they wait until you answer.

Anthropic also has Dispatch, part of Cowork, where you message a task from your phone and the computer at home carries it out. It’s in a limited beta on some Pro and Max plans and closed to new users. A newcomer should plan on Remote Control.

Either way the computer has to stay awake with the Claude app open. If it sleeps, the phone has nothing to talk to until it wakes up again.

Claude writes its files on the computer at home, not on the tablet, which is why the practice folder lives in iCloud Drive. On the iPad, open the Files app, tap iCloud Drive, and open Claude Practice. A packing list Claude saves at home shows up there shortly after, as long as that computer is awake and online. For a quick look without leaving the conversation, ask Claude to show you what’s in the file. Hotel or Airbnb Wi-Fi works for all of this, since Remote Control only makes outgoing web connections and needs nothing opened on the router at either end.

iCloud Drive is only one option. Google Drive works too, though I don’t recommend it, since everything in the folder then sits on Google’s servers. Dropbox, OneDrive, and most other services that sync a folder to an iPad app do the same job. My own setup keeps private copies on my own machines with Syncthing running over a Tailscale network, so the files never touch anyone else’s server. That takes more setup than a first session calls for.

Windows users can follow the same steps with one change to step 2. OneDrive comes built into Windows. A Claude Practice folder made inside it syncs without installing anything. Once the OneDrive app is on the iPad, that folder shows up in Files; if it doesn’t, switch OneDrive on in the Files app’s list of locations. Anyone already living in Apple’s cloud can install iCloud for Windows from the Microsoft Store instead (the current version wants Windows 11), which puts iCloud Drive in File Explorer. Sleep rules apply to a PC exactly as they do to a Mac, so check the power settings before leaving home.

Browser control is the one thing a tablet can’t borrow. Claude in Chrome is an extension for Chrome and other Chromium browsers on a desktop computer, and Google only lets Chrome extensions run on computers. On an iPhone or iPad, Chrome has no extensions at all.

Sources

#ai #claude #how-to