Claude Code Training Course

A comprehensive training presentation and hands-on lab exercises for using Claude Code in professional software development workflows.

🎯 What You'll Learn

This course teaches professional developers how to:

Create complete projects from scratch using Claude Code
Navigate and understand complex codebases with AI assistance
Implement the "branch-first" workflow for safe experimentation
Generate comprehensive tests and documentation
Refactor legacy code and modernize applications
Use advanced Claude Code features like Plan Mode and custom commands
Extend capabilities with Skills and Plugins for specialized workflows
Customize output styles for different learning preferences
Understand and leverage subagents for complex multi-step tasks
Implement sophisticated automation with hooks and event-driven workflows

🚀 Course Materials

This repository contains all the materials for the Claude Code Training course:

slides.md: The main Slidev presentation with interactive demos
lab_handout.md: Progressive hands-on labs from beginner to advanced
exercises.md: Instructor-led demos and exercises using real codebases
custom-commands.md: Showcase of powerful custom slash commands for workflow automation
commands/: Ready-to-use custom command files for students
skills-and-plugins/: Examples of custom skills and plugin configurations
hooks-examples/: Advanced hook patterns for workflow automation
exercises/: A collection of diverse sample projects:
- Python: Flask web app (weather-app) and legacy API (flask-api)
- JavaScript/TypeScript: Interactive web application (lyrics-trainer)
- Java: Modern Spring Boot service (certificate-service) and legacy Grails app (shopping-service)

🏃‍♀️ Running the Presentation

Install dependencies:
```
pnpm install
```
Start the presentation:
```
pnpm dev
```
Open your browser at http://localhost:3030

📚 Getting Started with the Labs

Prerequisites

Claude Code installed and configured
API key set: export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-key"
Development environment for Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Java
VS Code (optional, for IDE integration demonstrations)
Docker (optional, for MCP and containerized workflow examples)

Lab Structure

The lab_handout.md contains six progressive labs:

Project Creation from Scratch - Build a lyrics display app (recreates the lyrics-trainer origin story)
Claude Code Basics - Interface and project exploration
Code Exploration - Understanding complex codebases
Test Generation - Automated testing with AI
Documentation Creation - Professional documentation workflows
Legacy Code Refactoring - Modernizing Grails/Groovy applications
Advanced Workflows - Plan Mode, Skills, Plugins, Output Styles, Hooks, CLAUDE.md, and custom commands

Custom Commands

Students can explore and use pre-built custom slash commands:

Copy commands from commands/ to ~/.claude/commands/
See custom-commands.md for detailed explanations and usage examples
Commands include Java modernization, Spring generators, security reviews, and more

Teaching Notes

The exercises.md file contains detailed instructor guidance with specific prompts and a progressive story arc using the flask-api project as the primary demonstration vehicle.

🏗️ Course Philosophy

Branch-First Workflow: Emphasizes safe experimentation through Git branching
Practical Learning: Real-world projects across multiple languages and frameworks
Progressive Complexity: From simple tasks to advanced enterprise workflows
Best Practices: Professional development patterns and security considerations
Extensibility First: Skills and plugins provide persistent, reusable domain expertise
Adaptive Learning: Output styles and hooks adapt to diverse learning contexts
Intelligent Automation: Subagents handle specialized tasks automatically for optimal performance

👤 Author

Ken Kousen

Email: ken.kousen@kousenit.com
Website: kousenit.com
Course: Professional Claude Code Training

elifarley/claude-code-training