This page does one thing: gets Claude Code onto your computer. It takes about two minutes, and you never need to do it again.
First, the thing that trips everyone up: Claude Code is not the Claude app and not the claude.ai website. Those can only talk. Claude Code lives in your terminal and can actually do things on your computer. The tell: if you've never opened a terminal and typed claude, you don't have it yet.
1.Get a Claude account with a paid plan. Pro works. Sign up or upgrade at claude.ai. (The free plan doesn't include Claude Code.)
2.Open Terminal: press Cmd+Space, type "terminal", press Return. A window appears where you can type commands. That's the whole trick.
3.Paste this and press Return:
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash && { grep -q '/.local/bin' ~/.zshrc 2>/dev/null || echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc; } && export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" && echo "All set. Any PATH note above is already handled. Type claude to start."
Note: Mac stopped with "xcrun: error: invalid active developer path"? That's your Mac missing Apple's Command Line Tools. Run xcode-select --install, click Install on the popup, wait the few minutes it takes, then paste the command above again.
4.When it finishes, it just says thanks. Nothing opens. That's normal, you're not done yet.
5.Type claude and press Return. Claude Code starts its own quick setup: pick a text style, then it asks how you want to sign in.
6.Choose the first option: "Claude account with subscription." It sends you to your browser to log in with your paid Claude account. Don't pick "Anthropic Console account", that's pay-per-use billing for developers and it's not what you want.
7.If it asks whether you trust the files in this folder, say yes. It asks that once for any new folder, and you'll see it again if you install one of my systems later. Normal both times.
8.Ask it anything to watch it answer, then type /exit. You're done: from now on, typing claude in any terminal opens a session that's signed in and ready.
That's it. Head back to whatever sent you here and pick up where you left off.