Claude Trainer
A beginner-friendly guide

Learn Claude Code by building with it.

Claude Trainer teaches the Claude platform — commands, skills, subagents, MCP, hooks, the API, and more — through hands-on tasks. You don't just read; you author the real artifact and pass automated checks before the next lesson unlocks.

How this trainer works

1
Read a short lesson

Each lesson is concise and concrete — what the feature is, when to use it, and a real example.

2
Build the real thing

Every lesson ends with a task: author a command, a SKILL.md, an MCP config, a hook — validated by automated checks.

3
Pass to unlock

Lessons gate sequentially within a course. Finish all courses to unlock the final capstone assessment.

This repo is a working example of what it teaches

Claude Trainer dogfoods every feature in the curriculum: it ships a real custom command, Skill, subagent, MCP servers, lifecycle hooks, a pre-commit code-review hook, and a weekly scheduled feature-scan. Lessons point you straight at these live files in the codebase — the repo earns each lesson.

Choose your path

New to Claude Code? Start at the top. Already comfortable? Jump straight to a track — courses are independently startable.

BeginnerClaude Code Essentials

Prompt Claude effectively and give it the project context it needs — the starting point for newcomers.

BeginnerFoundations: Extending Claude

The three core ways to extend Claude — slash commands, Skills, and subagents — then orchestrate agents in parallel.

IntermediateContext, Memory & Workflow

Give Claude permanent project knowledge with CLAUDE.md, persist facts across sessions with memory, and plan before you act.

IntermediateConnecting Tools: MCP

Connect Claude to external tools and data with the Model Context Protocol — servers, tools, and resources.

IntermediateAutomation & Control

React to Claude's actions with lifecycle hooks, gate commits, run scheduled routines, and fine-tune permissions, models, and settings.

AdvancedBuilding with Claude

Go beyond the CLI: call the Claude API directly, give Claude tools to use, and orchestrate autonomous agents with the Agent SDK.

AdvancedAdvanced Agents & the Agent SDK

Production agents: multi-agent orchestration and the agent loop the SDK runs for you.

AdvancedClaude Code, Leveled Up

Package what you've built into a plugin, customize how Claude communicates, and manage long sessions with checkpoints and background tasks.

IntermediateReasoning & Models

Turn on extended thinking for harder problems, and choose the right model from the current Claude lineup for a given task.

IntermediateMultimodal & Server Tools

Send images and documents to Claude, and let Claude use Anthropic-hosted server tools like web search and code execution.

What you'll need

  • • Curiosity — no prior Claude Code experience required for the Beginner track
  • • An Anthropic API key only for the later “Building with Claude” course (optional)