Claude Code Fundamentals

A four-part series covering what Claude Code actually is, how to set it up, and how to configure it well. Required pre-reading for Track 3 — Developer workshop.

Part 1 of 4 · Claude Code Fundamentals

Part 1: The agentic loop — why Claude Code is not autocomplete

Most developers pick up Claude Code expecting it to behave like a faster Copilot. It does not. It is an agentic loop that reads, acts, observes, and repeats. That distinction changes everything about how you use it.

Part 2 of 4 · Claude Code Fundamentals

Part 2: Getting started — Claude Code in VS Code

VS Code is the recommended starting environment for Claude Code. The extension makes every step of the agentic loop visible — plans you can review, diffs you approve, checkpoints you can rewind to. Here is what to set up and how to work with it.

Part 3 of 4 · Claude Code Fundamentals

Part 3: CLAUDE.md, Skills and Hooks — encoding your judgment

The engineers who get the most from Claude Code invest in configuration, not prompting. CLAUDE.md encodes project knowledge. Skills encode process. Hooks enforce policy. Together they make the agentic loop consistent without re-explaining context every session.

Part 4 of 4 · Claude Code Fundamentals

Part 4: Subagents, MCP and the architecture behind Code Review

Claude Code can spawn multiple agents running in parallel, connect to external systems via MCP, and integrate into team workflows at scale. This is the same architecture that powers the Code Review feature — and it is available in every session.

Capstone · Claude Code Fundamentals

Agentic code review: AI hunts the bugs. You still own the merge.

How the Code Review feature deploys the fleet subagent architecture in production — and what you still own as the engineer.

Track 3 pre-task: Read Parts 1–3 before the developer workshop. Parts 4 and the capstone article are covered during the session.

Book Track 3 workshop