- Claude Code is an agent coding tool launching as a research preview, designed to help developers work with code directly within their terminal.
- It can understand, modify, test, and debug code, automating many aspects of the development workflow from feature implementation to error resolution.
- The tool demonstrates capabilities such as explaining existing codebases, suggesting changes, adding tests, fixing build errors, and managing Git operations like committing and pushing.
Introducing Claude Code
- Claude Code operates directly in the terminal and gains access to all files in a repository upon initialization.
- It can explain an unfamiliar codebase by first reading higher-level files and then diving deeper into components.
- The tool autonomously identifies the correct files to update for a given task, even without explicit file paths provided by the user.
- Users can review Claude Code's thought process and reasoning behind its proposed changes before accepting them.
- Claude Code can implement new features, update application logic, and add tests to ensure functionality, making sure all tests pass before completing a task.
- It is capable of identifying and fixing build errors, repeatedly attempting to compile the application until successful.
- The tool can summarize its completed changes, create a Git commit, and push those changes to a remote repository.
Claude Code — An agent coding tool that assists developers with various coding tasks directly within the terminal.
research preview — An early, experimental version of a product or feature released to a limited audience for feedback and testing.
agent coding tool — A type of software, often powered by AI, that helps developers write, understand, modify, and test code.
terminal — A command-line interface (CLI) used to interact with a computer's operating system or software.
repository — A central storage location for code and its revision history, typically managed by a version control system like Git.
codebase — The entire collection of source code that makes up a software project or application.
Next.js app — A web application built using the Next.js React framework, often used for server-side rendered or statically generated web pages.
navbar — (Navigation Bar) A graphical control element that provides navigation links to different parts of a website or application.
build errors — Issues encountered during the compilation process of software, preventing the application from being successfully generated.
commit — In version control (e.g., Git), the act of saving a set of changes to the repository's history, along with a message describing them.
push — In version control (e.g., Git), the action of uploading local committed changes to a remote repository.
Should we be doing like big smile or... I don't know, what do you do? Big smile, that's creepy. That's sort of like... I'm Boris, I'm an engineer. I'm Kat, I'm a product manager. We love seeing what people build with Claude, especially with coding. And we want to make Claude better coding for everyone. We built some tools, one of which we're sharing today. We're launching Claude Code as a research preview. Claude Code is an agent coding tool that lets you work with Claude directly in your terminal. We're going to show you an example of it in action. So we have a project here. It's a next JS app. Let's open it up in an instance of Claude Code. Now that we've done this, Claude Code has access to all of the files in this repository. We don't know much about this codebase. It looks like an app for chatting with a customer support agent. Let's get Claude to help explain this codebase to us. Claude starts by reading the higher level files. And then it dives in deeper. Now it's going through all the components in the project. Cool, here's its final analysis. So, Seiya was asked to replace this website bar with a chat history. And I'm also going to add a new chat button. And ask Claude to help me out here. We haven't specified any files or paths. And Claude's already finding the right file to update by itself. Claude can also show its thinking. And we can see how it's decided to tackle this problem. Claude's asking me if I want to accept these changes. I'll say yeah. Now Claude's updating the navbar, adding a button and icons as well. Next, it's updating the logic to ensure the saving state works correctly. After a bit, Claude completes the task. Here's a summary of what it's done. Let's take a look at that. So we're seeing a new chat button. And new chat history section on the left. Let's check if I can start a new chat while keeping the previous one saved. I'll try out the new chat button too. Great, that's all working. Now let's ask Claude to add some tests. To make sure that the features we just added work. Claude's asking permission to run commands. We'll say yes. Claude is making some changes to run these tests. After getting the results, it continues with its plan until all tests pass. After a few minutes, it looks like we're good to go. Now I'm going to ask Claude to compile the app and see if we get any build errors. Let's see what it finds. Claude identifies the build errors and is now fixing them. Then it tries to build again. We'll keep going until it works. Now let's finish everything up by asking Claude to commit its changes and push them to get up. Claude creates a summary and a description of our changes. And it'll push the changes to get up. That's it. That's an example of what Claude code can do. We can't wait for people to start building with it.
TL;DR
- Claude Code is an agent coding tool launching as a research preview, designed to help developers work with code directly within their terminal.
- It can understand, modify, test, and debug code, automating many aspects of the development workflow from feature implementation to error resolution.
- The tool demonstrates capabilities such as explaining existing codebases, suggesting changes, adding tests, fixing build errors, and managing Git operations like committing and pushing.
Takeaways
- Claude Code operates directly in the terminal and gains access to all files in a repository upon initialization.
- It can explain an unfamiliar codebase by first reading higher-level files and then diving deeper into components.
- The tool autonomously identifies the correct files to update for a given task, even without explicit file paths provided by the user.
- Users can review Claude Code's thought process and reasoning behind its proposed changes before accepting them.
- Claude Code can implement new features, update application logic, and add tests to ensure functionality, making sure all tests pass before completing a task.
- It is capable of identifying and fixing build errors, repeatedly attempting to compile the application until successful.
- The tool can summarize its completed changes, create a Git commit, and push those changes to a remote repository.
Vocabulary
Claude Code — An agent coding tool that assists developers with various coding tasks directly within the terminal.
research preview — An early, experimental version of a product or feature released to a limited audience for feedback and testing.
agent coding tool — A type of software, often powered by AI, that helps developers write, understand, modify, and test code.
terminal — A command-line interface (CLI) used to interact with a computer's operating system or software.
repository — A central storage location for code and its revision history, typically managed by a version control system like Git.
codebase — The entire collection of source code that makes up a software project or application.
Next.js app — A web application built using the Next.js React framework, often used for server-side rendered or statically generated web pages.
navbar — (Navigation Bar) A graphical control element that provides navigation links to different parts of a website or application.
build errors — Issues encountered during the compilation process of software, preventing the application from being successfully generated.
commit — In version control (e.g., Git), the act of saving a set of changes to the repository's history, along with a message describing them.
push — In version control (e.g., Git), the action of uploading local committed changes to a remote repository.
Transcript
Should we be doing like big smile or... I don't know, what do you do? Big smile, that's creepy. That's sort of like... I'm Boris, I'm an engineer. I'm Kat, I'm a product manager. We love seeing what people build with Claude, especially with coding. And we want to make Claude better coding for everyone. We built some tools, one of which we're sharing today. We're launching Claude Code as a research preview. Claude Code is an agent coding tool that lets you work with Claude directly in your terminal. We're going to show you an example of it in action. So we have a project here. It's a next JS app. Let's open it up in an instance of Claude Code. Now that we've done this, Claude Code has access to all of the files in this repository. We don't know much about this codebase. It looks like an app for chatting with a customer support agent. Let's get Claude to help explain this codebase to us. Claude starts by reading the higher level files. And then it dives in deeper. Now it's going through all the components in the project. Cool, here's its final analysis. So, Seiya was asked to replace this website bar with a chat history. And I'm also going to add a new chat button. And ask Claude to help me out here. We haven't specified any files or paths. And Claude's already finding the right file to update by itself. Claude can also show its thinking. And we can see how it's decided to tackle this problem. Claude's asking me if I want to accept these changes. I'll say yeah. Now Claude's updating the navbar, adding a button and icons as well. Next, it's updating the logic to ensure the saving state works correctly. After a bit, Claude completes the task. Here's a summary of what it's done. Let's take a look at that. So we're seeing a new chat button. And new chat history section on the left. Let's check if I can start a new chat while keeping the previous one saved. I'll try out the new chat button too. Great, that's all working. Now let's ask Claude to add some tests. To make sure that the features we just added work. Claude's asking permission to run commands. We'll say yes. Claude is making some changes to run these tests. After getting the results, it continues with its plan until all tests pass. After a few minutes, it looks like we're good to go. Now I'm going to ask Claude to compile the app and see if we get any build errors. Let's see what it finds. Claude identifies the build errors and is now fixing them. Then it tries to build again. We'll keep going until it works. Now let's finish everything up by asking Claude to commit its changes and push them to get up. Claude creates a summary and a description of our changes. And it'll push the changes to get up. That's it. That's an example of what Claude code can do. We can't wait for people to start building with it.