6 Months of Claude Code Lessons in 27 Minutes

There's a new king of AI coding tools

and its name is Claude code. But 6

months ago, I was using Claude code all

wrong. I was basically treating it like

chatbt with a save button, typing in

vague prompts, and just hoping for the

best. It was like buying a Ferrari, but

never taking it out of first gear. Fast

forward to today, and I'm a Cloud Code

Power user. I can run multiple instances

of Claude Code at the same time and work

on a week's worth of features in just a

few hours. See how each Claude Code

instance is working on different app

feature completely independent from the

other. And yes, Claude Code will merge

all the changes together at the end. In

this video, I'm going to save you 6

months of pain by sharing 36 specific

lessons about how to get the most out of

Claude Code. These lessons are going to

be organized into three clear levels:

beginner, intermediate, and master. In

level one, the beginner section, we're

going to cover Claude code foundations.

We'll cover installation and setup

essential concepts and commands, and how

to use things like the claw.md file to

put you ahead of 99% of beginners. In

level two, the intermediate section

we're going to look at workflow

enhancements. We'll cover claiming mode

using Claude for research and

documentation, and using Claude code to

automatically answer issues and create

PRs in GitHub. And finally, level three

the master section. We're going to look

at advanced techniques. We'll cover

things like using multiple claude codes

at the same time to work on multiple

different features, custom commands, and

custom sub aents, and using Claude code

with MCP servers. So whether you're a

Claude Code beginner or power user like

me, I can guarantee that you're going to

learn something from this video that's

going to help you cook at a higher level

with Claude Code. But before we dive in

I'm Afar and I teach people how to use

AI coding tools, even if you're new to

coding. So if you're trying to level up

with AI coding tools, maybe it's for

your job, maybe it's for a new business

you're trying to start, maybe it's for a

side project, please subscribe to the

channel and turn on notifications for

more videos about the best AI coding

tools and how to get the most out of

them. With that out the way, let's get

into level one, the foundations of

Claude Code. All right, so if you're new

to Cloud Code or feel like you might be

missing some basics, this section is for

you. We're going to cover everything you

need to get up and running with Cloud

Code, including things like installation

and setup, basic commands, project

configurations, and debugging. First up

installation. The way that you install

Claude Code and the way that the

majority of people use it is just on

their local laptops or their local

machines. You go to the Enthropic

website, copy the command for claude

code, and install it on your local

machine using your terminal. It's quick

it's easy, and you can begin coding

right away. Option two, and this is

great for using Claude Code for back-end

projects, is to install Cloud Code on a

remote server. Just log in to wherever

the server is hosted, for example, AWS

Digital Ocean, or Herzner, and install

Cloud Code just like you would things

like Python or Node. A bonus of the

remote server approach is that this

allows you to code from anywhere. For

example, you can use the termius app on

iOS to control claude code right from

your phone. Tip number three is that you

can use claude code inside other AI

coding tools like cursor, windf.

This is great if you're already familiar

with those tools or still getting

comfortable with the terminal. To get

started, navigate to the directory of

your choice and type claude in your

terminal. You can also use the resume

flag. That's d-res

any previous session. Tip number four is

to use my favorite feature of Claude

Code and that's to-do list. This is the

thing that made Claude Code stand out

for me among all the other AI coding

tools at the time. It didn't just jump

into writing code straight away. First

it created a to-do list. Now, this

happens most of the time automatically

but you can also explicitly prompt plot

code to use to-do list in the prompt

that you give it. The great thing about

to-do list is that as Claude works, it

checks off items so that you can see

what's happening and what's coming next.

And it also enables Claude to work on

big complex tasks without getting stuck

in loops or erasing past work. Next

let's look at some essential commands.

First up is bash mode. Bash mode enables

you to run bash commands inside Claude

code so you don't have to exit out of

it. Claude can also run bash commands

itself, meaning it can do things like

read and write files, search, and even

handle git commands for you. For

example, you can tell Claude to read all

the files in a certain folder and use it

for context for tasks it will do. Tip

number six is to use Claude for instant

documentation. Documentation doesn't

have to be painful. Just ask Claude to

explore and explain the architecture of

an app and how it works and save its

output in a file called something like

architecture.md.

This is great when you're getting up to

speed with a new project or touching a

project that you haven't worked on in a

couple weeks or just documenting key

things for you, your teammates, or even

Claude to reference later. Tip number

eight is auto accept mode. Claude will

usually prompt you for permissions to

make changes. If you want to let Claude

take the wheel, you can turn on auto

accept mode by pressing shift and tab

together. This enables Claude to make

changes without asking each time. Tip

number nine is about model switching.

Now, Claude code allows you to choose

from a variety of anthropic models to

power its AI coding sessions. The /model

command allows you to choose which model

to use. You can use Opus, which is the

most powerful model when you need deeper

analysis or want the most powerful

coding capabilities for your toughest

challenges. And you can use Sonnet for

routine tasks. So if you just want to

save tokens or get faster responses. I

usually keep it at the default mode

which is using Opus until you've hit 50%

of your usage limits for that month. But

my new favorite is actually the Opus

plan mode, which is where it uses Opus

the more powerful model to plan, and

Sonnet, the more costefficient model, to

actually write the code and do the

execution. It's something I recommend

you play around with and see which model

works best for your use case. Next up

don't be afraid to interrupt Claude. The

escape key is your friend. You can press

the escape key once to interrupt Claude

and twice to go back to a previous

prompt in your session. Don't hesitate

to interrupt Claude if you see it

heading in the wrong direction. It's

much better to redirect early than to

waste precious tokens. Next up in the

beginner section, let's talk about

fixing your mistakes or debugging with

Claude code. It's actually much simpler

than you think. First up is a screenshot

method. Now, claude code can take images

as input. So, if you run into any UI

issues or any bugs in your application

you can actually take screenshots and

give them to Claude Code as inputs for

your prompts. This allows Claude to see

all the context and it usually can tell

exactly what went wrong or it allows it

to pinpoint exactly where in the UI you

want to make a particular fix. Now you

can also use the image input for other

things like giving it UI designs and

diagrams as well, but I think the most

common usage is for debugging. The next

level of debugging is letting Claude

write your tests for you. This is as

simple as just asking Claude to write

tests for a particular feature or write

tests for the new onboarding flow. Just

make sure to focus on general end toend

tests rather than implementation

specific ones. And we can take this

further with tip number 13 which is

using cloud code for testdriven

development or TDD. Now test-driven

development is a really popular software

engineering philosophy. But when it

comes to Claude code, essentially what

this means is asking Claude to first

write tests for a given feature and then

to implement it. This helps Claude catch

issues early and it gives it a bit of

structure to work with, which can lead

to better outputs. Next up is project

configuration. And that brings us to

what I think is the most important thing

in this video, which is the claude.md

file. You can think of the claude.md

file as your project's memory. It's a

file that gets added to context every

single time Claude Code does any task

and it's all the information that you

want to give Claude Code to work on your

project your way. Here are some snippets

of my claude.md file for an iOS app that

I'm working on. It consists of things

like Git workflows and best practices

project and architecture overviews

build commands and best practices for

things like testing and debugging, and

analytics and documentation how-tos.

Now, the great thing about putting these

in the claude.md file is that Claude

will follow these rules automatically.

It'll create proper branches, commit

regularly, and never accidentally push

to main. It'll follow my preferences for

documenting its work and always add

tests and analytics when building out

new features. This ability to follow

complex rules and tailor both workflows

and output has made Claude my favorite

AI coding tool, outshining the likes of

cursor and replet. Now, before you worry

that you have to manually write your

claw.md file, you can actually just ask

Claude to write it for you. That's going

to be a recurring theme in this video.

Using Claude code to help you use Claude

code better. What this means in this

case is asking Claude to update the

claw.md file as you add specific

features to your project or as you

discover preferences that you want to

make Claude respect. Tip number 15 is

the message Q. Now the message Q is a

real gamecher because it means that you

don't have to wait for Claude to finish

its current task before you give it

input. You can just type a message while

Claude is working and it gets added to

the message queue and Claude will act on

it once it's finished with the current

task. Just add tasks as you think of

them and Claude will work through them

all in order. And that brings us to tip

number 16, which is the final tip in our

beginner section and that is for long

prompts, you can actually put your

prompt in a markdown file and feed it to

Claude by referencing that file in the

prompt using the at symbol. This is much

cleaner than trying to type everything

in the terminal and it's great if you

have long prompts if you want to think

things through before you give it to

Claude. Now, that brings us to the end

of the foundation section that gives you

everything you need in order to get

started with Claude code. Let's take it

up a notch to the intermediate section

where we're going to look at Claude Code

workflow enhancements. Now that you're

comfortable with the basics, it's time

for level two or the intermediate

section and that's about working

smarter, not harder. I'm going to share

with you the enhanced workflows that I

use in Claude Code to plan better

research faster, and integrate with my

existing GitHub workflows. First up is

planning and thinking features that are

going to help you level up and enable

Claude code to tackle your toughest

problems. Tip number 17 is to use

planning mode. Now, most of the time

you don't just want to jump straight

into writing code. Often times, you want

to plan and strategize before you start

implementing. To do this, use the

planning mode on Claude Code and ask it

to plan before it starts working on a

new feature. Just hit tab and shift

until you see the plan only mode and

that will ensure that Claude gives you a

plan to review before any code is

written. I use the planning mode all the

time for architecture decisions or to

force Claude to think through how to fix

nollie bugs before it takes action. When

it comes to planning, a hidden setting

to make use of is the opus plan mode.

This means that you can use opus for

planning and sonnet for implementation

just by selecting the /model command.

This is a good default to ensure that

you get the most powerful model for

planning but the cheaper model for

implementation. Another underrated

feature when it comes to planning is to

use sub agents to create multiple plans

for how to do let's say implementing a

given feature or to fix a certain bug

and let you or Claude pick the best one.

Look out for more on planning and

parallel sub aents in the advanced

section of the video. Next up, did you

know that you can control how much

Claude thinks when it's working? Meet

the think keywords. These allow you to

tell Claude how much time to spend

thinking when you're working on tough

problems. There's actually three think

keywords. There's the basic think

there's think hard for deeper analysis

and for maximum thinking power, use the

keyword ultra think. Just include the

appropriate thinking keyword in your

prompt and it will tell Claude to use

more of its thinking budget. Now imagine

you're prompting Claude to add a new

feature and you're using the think hard

keyword in your prompt. But you're also

using planning mode and you're saving

that output into a markdown file for

future reference. That's just one

example of combining tips that we've

seen in this video into a powerful

workflow for vibe coding. The next

unlock for me was that I could use

Claude code for more than just code. My

favorite example of this is research.

Claude has a web search and web fetch

tool that enables it to search the web

and read website content and take action

on it. This means that you can use

Claude code to research small things

like how to use a Stripe API or ask it

to do larger research tasks like put

together a report on the best O tool to

use in your application that also has

pre-built login components. It's that

powerful. This saves you a ton of time

and allows you to take into account more

of your app's context as you add tools

and features. Another hidden feature

when it comes to research is that Claude

Code can read PDFs. This means that it

can combine information that you have in

PDF files with information that it finds

in its web searches. My favorite example

of how to use this feature is feeding

Claude PDFs of Chad GBT deep research

reports so that it can reference those

in its research phase. Beyond research

Claude code is great for document

generation. This is important because

I've noticed that you need to think like

a product manager and give Claude code

all the context that it needs in order

to do its job well. The good news is

that you don't have to write all of

these product specs by yourself. You can

actually leverage Claude to generate

artifacts that both you and Claude

reference later. I use Claude to

generate things like product requirement

docs or PRDS for features, user

experience guides, API documentation

and technical design docs. I find these

docs to be more useful than the ones

made in chatbt because they take into

account more of the actual structure of

my application and leverage all the

context of my project for better

results. Tip number 26 is something that

I use to stay organized in the projects

that I build and that's using claude

code for automatic change tracking. This

is about leveraging clawed code for

things like creating change logs for it

to reference later, documenting the most

up-to-date features of your app for use

on your website, or making things like

decision docs, which outlines why you

made a particular decision. I highly

recommend leveraging Claude Code for

keeping track of how your project

evolves over time. Your future self and

your future Claude Code agents will

thank you. Next up is a Claude Code

GitHub integration. Claude Code is

fantastic for teams thanks to its deep

integration with GitHub actions. Now

you may remember how you can use Claude

Code to handle Git commands for you as

you develop features. But this Claude

Code and GitHub actions integration

takes it to the next level. First, run

the /install GH actions from the Cloud

Code menu. And once you've set that up

you can tag Claude Code in issues and

pull requests and ask it to fix it. and

Claude code will run using GitHub

actions and submit a PR or a fix without

needing to run on your local or your

remote machine. Claude can even review

PRs automatically as they come in.

Finally, in this intermediate section, I

want to talk about the mindset that

helps me get the most out of working

with Claude code. For best results with

working with Claude code, you need to

think like a product manager. And this

means two specific things. Firstly, it

means giving Claude lots of clear

relevant context and constraints when it

comes to achieving your goals. Secondly

and probably most importantly, it means

letting go of reviewing the code

yourself or needing to understand

everything that Claude has implemented

and working to verify Claude's outputs

at higher levels of abstraction. What

this means is that you don't need to

understand every line of code outputed

by Claude. Can you verify that the app

experience is what you want? Can you

verify that the tests pass? Can you

verify that the app works as intended?

That's what matters. This approach

literally changed how I built with AI

coding tools. And it's a mindset shift

that I had to make, similar to what I've

experienced in real life when I had to

work and manage smart technical people

on my team at previous jobs that I've

held. Now, this brings us to the end of

level two, the end of the intermediate

section of Claude Code. I'm sure you're

seeing just how powerful Claude code can

be and are probably super excited to use

it in your own projects. But hold up

because we have more to learn in level

three and that's the master section

where we're going to go through advanced

techniques. Level three is where you

become a Claude code master by

leveraging advanced techniques that

allow you to feel the full power of

Claude code. We'll cover things like

using multiple instances of claude code

to develop multiple features at the same

time, custom commands, custom sub aents

and using claude code with MCP servers.

First up, let's talk about working in

parallel or using multiple Claude codes

at the same time. For those of you

keeping count, this is tip 29 and it's

using parallel sub aents for planning

and exploration. This allows Claude to

explore multiple solutions

simultaneously and then you pick the

best one. It's like having a team

brainstorming session. All you need to

do is ask Claude to plan and use

parallel sub aents to explore solutions.

Parallel sub aents are great if you want

to explore how to add complex features

to your app or if you want to fix gnarly

bugs or problems. Now remember at the

start of this video where I used three

claude code instances to work on three

features at the same time. I'm going to

show you how to do that using the power

of cloud code and get work trees. Get to

work trees give you isolation that

enables multiple claude agents to work

on your project without conflicts. Just

create a hidden folder in your project.

I called mine trees and use the git add

commands to create a work tree for each

different feature or thread that you

want to work on. Once the work trees are

created, you can spin up a terminal

session for each work tree and then run

claude code in each. Here's me doing

that in cursor, but you can also do it

in your terminal. This gives you a

beautiful clean git history that's easy

to understand and review. Using cloud

code and git work trees allows you to

work on multiple features at the same

time on the same codebase without

running into issues down the line. When

you're done, just ask Claude Code to

merge each of these work trees in your

folder together and fix any conflicts.

And boom, thanks to Cloud Code and using

multiple Cloud Code instances and Git

work trees, you can have a week's worth

of development done in just a few

minutes. Now, that's how to use Cloud

Code in parallel. Next up is the

advanced customization section. And the

next tip is using custom commands.

They're basically like having prompting

shortcuts for Claude Code to act on

repetitive tasks versus typing out the

same long prompts over and over again.

Now, the easiest way to make

custom/comands is just to ask Claude to

do it for you. But if you want to do it

manually, here's how to set up custom

commands yourself. Create a commands

folder in the Claude folder in your

working directory. Then add a markdown

file with the name of your command. For

example changelog.md.

Your command file should have a

description of what the command does

the list of allowed tools, usually

things like bash, read, and write, and

the actual command prompts, which is

what you want the command to do. Command

prompts can go beyond just plain text

and include things like arguments for

dynamic input, bash commands, and things

like file references. A pro tip here is

that custom commands can be project

specific or they can apply to all your

Claude Co projects and this is called a

personal command. One more thing to note

here is that custom commands don't

automatically get added to context. So

if you want something to always be added

to context, for example, information

about your application, put these in the

claw.md file, that always gets added to

context. Custom commands don't. This

brings us to tip 34, which is using

specialized sub aents. Just like custom

commands, you can create custom sub

aents. These are specialized AI systems

with custom prompts and tool permissions

that can handle specific tasks

autonomously. And just like custom

commands, they can be project specific

or they can be personal and apply to all

projects. For example, you may want to

create custom or specialized sub aents

for things like user experience design

API design, security review, running

tests or database administration and

other domain specific tasks. Each sub

agent has specific tools that it can

access and a domain specific purpose

reflected in its system prompt. The

easiest way to create custom sub aents

is to use the / aagents command in

claude code. This is another example of

using Claude Code to help you use Claude

Code better. There's a wizard that walks

you through setting up a new agent. And

this is much easier than setting it up

yourself because Claude does the heavy

lifting for you. In this example, I'm

setting up an agent to do mix panel

analytics. And here's what's going on

under the hood. Each agent has a

markdown file which specifies its agent

type, usage, accessible tools, and

system prompts which gives you an

overview of what the agent does. You can

view all the agents that you've created

with the / agents command. Once you've

created your sub agents, Claude will

automatically know that they exist.

It'll understand what it's used for

based on what's in the usage field

description in your agent markdown file

and it'll automatically delegate tasks

to your sub agent when relevant. Claude

will also use these sub agents if you

explicitly ask for them in your prompt.

So for example, you could say, hey, use

the testr runner sub aent in order to

run these tests or use the database

administration agent to make sure that

the queries are correct for this new

feature. Now the final thing in this

advanced section is using cloud code

with MCP servers. Now what happens when

you want to extend Claude codes

capabilities to take actions in third

party tools like databases or tools like

Figma or Canva? This is where model

context protocol or MCP comes in. Here

are some ways that I like to use MCP

servers with cloud code. First up is

database MCPS. These are great for doing

direct database work. I've used the

MongoDB MCP, the Postgress MCP server

as well as a Superbase MCP server for

various database related things in the

apps that I've built. Next up is a

Playrite MCP for browser automation.

This is great because it allows Claude

code to actually visually see your

application and your web UI, and it's

great for things like testing and

finding and fixing bugs. Finally

there's a Figma MCP, which is great for

going from design to code. Now, there's

many other MCP servers out there. I'm

actually curious if there's a particular

MCP server that you found most useful.

Let me know in the comments. But those

are just three that I like. These

capabilities are incredibly powerful and

I think they'll become even more

powerful as the MCP server ecosystem

matures. So, that brings us to the end

of level three. That's the master

section of Claude Code. We've gone from

beginner where we've looked at the

foundations to intermediate where we

looked at enhanced workflows to the

master section where we've covered

advanced techniques for getting the most

out of claude code. Congrats on making

it this far in the video. But before we

end off, let's talk about a very

important thing with AI coding tools and

especially with Claude Code, and that's

money. How much does Claude Code cost

and is it worth the money? Now

unfortunately, there's no free version

of Claude Code, but there is two ways to

access it. The first way is via one of

the Claude paid plans, and there's two

of them that you can choose from. The

first one is a $20 a month pro plan. You

can use this to get started or to play

around with. And when you're serious

about building, I'd recommend the Max

plan, which goes for either $100 or $200

a month. The Max 5X plan gets you 5x

higher rate limits than the Pro plan for

$100 a month. And the Max 20X plan gets

you 20x higher rate limits at $200 a

month. This is the plan that I

personally use and I'd recommend it if

you're serious about AI coding tools

but you know, pick whatever plan fits

your budget. The second way to use cloud

code is through the anthropic API, but

this is just ridiculously expensive and

unless you're part of a large company

that will pay for the anthropic API

usage for you, I'd recommend picking a

claude pro or max plan that fits your

budget and not looking back. Quick note

Anthropic announced that at the end of

August, they're going to be imposing

additional rate limits, and that's

weekly rate limits on Claude Max users.

I'm not quite sure how this is going to

impact Claude users. I don't think the

impact is going to be that big. I still

think Claude is good value for the

money, but we'll have to see what these

rate limits do come the end of August.

That brings us to the end of this video.

I hope it helped demystify Claude Code

and made you super excited to build and

unleash your creativity with Claude Code

by your side. If you learned something

from this video, don't forget to like

and subscribe. And if you thought there

was a feature that was really cool or

maybe something that I didn't cover in

this video, it could be about claude

code, it could be about AI coding in

general, let me know in the comments and

I'll see you in the next One.