Jared Hebb · Claude Code for Beginners

An independent course · no coding experience required

Your busywork takes an hour. There’s an AI that does it in minutes. Learn to run it.

Claude Code does real work on your computer: renames the 400 files, cleans up the spreadsheet, builds the website. You tell it what you want in plain English. Most people use it badly, get garbage, and quit. This course makes you good at it in one weekend, and you finish with a real website you built, live on the internet. You’ve never opened a terminal? Perfect. That’s exactly who this is for.

Get the course See the curriculum

Who this is for

You don’t need to be a programmer. I’m not one.

Small-business owners

Invoices, quotes, client folders, the website you’ve been meaning to fix for a year. Every hour you spend on that is an hour you’re not selling. This is exactly the work Claude Code is good at, and it’s most of the course’s examples.

Freelancers & office workers

If part of your week is moving data between spreadsheets or reformatting the same report, do the math: three hours a week is 150 hours a year. The course shows you how to hand that off, and how to check the work, which is the part everyone skips.

People who’ve only used the chat apps

ChatGPT and Claude in a browser talk about the work. Claude Code does the work, on your actual files, on your actual computer. Once you’ve seen the difference, you can’t unsee it.

Curriculum · about 6 hours, self-paced

Eight modules. Real work by module two. A live website by module eight.

01
What Claude Code Is (and Isn’t)The agent mental model, what it can touch, and the three habits of productive users.
30 min
02
Setup: Install and First LaunchTwo doors in, the desktop app or the terminal. Install, log in, and do your first real task.
30 min
03
Your First Real SessionHow to give instructions that work the first time, how to check the results, and what to do when they’re wrong.
45 min
04
Everyday Superpowers (No Code Required)Files, data, documents, research, and automation. Five real mini-projects on your own computer.
60 min
05
Projects, Context, and CLAUDE.mdSet up project folders that Claude already understands, so recurring work takes one sentence to start.
45 min
06
Git and GitHub Without TearsVersion control in plain English. You never memorize a command, and you can undo anything afterward.
45 min
07
Making It YoursPermissions tuned to your comfort level, plan mode, and your own custom commands.
45 min
08
Capstone: Build & Publish a WebsiteA real site, live on the internet at a real URL, plus the routine for keeping it updated yourself.
90 min

Plus a one-page cheat sheet and a glossary in normal English. Module 4 alone leaves you with five finished automations running on your own files.

About me

I can’t write code.

I’m Jared Hebb. This year I used Claude Code to build electricaltoolbox.com, a set of NEC calculators for licensed electricians. Wrong numbers fail inspections. "Close enough" was never an option. So I had to figure out how to get reliable work out of an AI without being able to read the code myself, and that skill, not coding, is what this course teaches.

My education cost me weeks: vague instructions, work I accepted without checking, one afternoon lost to a change I couldn’t undo. Yours costs nothing, because the course is my mistakes, pre-made. The undo button gets set up before the big projects start, not after something breaks.

The proof: a growing library of working calculators, live at electricaltoolbox.com, built and maintained by me alone, and I add to it constantly.
Go check it right now. I’ll wait.

The course

The course is free.

All eight modules, the cheat sheet, and the capstone.

Get the course Or read Module 1 by email

Questions

Common questions

I’ve never used a terminal. Is this really for me?

You’re the exact person it was written for. Module 2 opens with two doors: the desktop app, which needs no terminal, or the terminal path, which needs about three things you know going in, and after that you’re typing English sentences. If you can write an email describing what you want done, you have the prerequisite.

Anthropic has Cowork now. Can’t I just use that?

Maybe, and I’ll be straight with you. Cowork is Claude Code’s no-terminal sibling in the Claude apps, included in the same paid plans. If everything you want is file cleanup and document chores, Cowork might cover you, and you should use it. This course is for the step after that: building and publishing a real website, the git undo button that makes mistakes free, automation you set up once and own forever. That lives in Claude Code, and Module 1 sorts out the whole Claude family in thirty seconds so you always know which tool to reach for.

What does it cost besides the course?

A paid Claude plan. Pro is about $20 a month and includes Claude Code, plenty for everything in the course. The website you build in the last module hosts for free. So the all-in first month is about $20, and one automated weekly task covers that by itself.

Is this affiliated with Anthropic?

No. I’m just a guy who uses the tool a lot. "Claude" and "Claude Code" are trademarks of Anthropic, and this course isn’t endorsed by them.

Claude Code updates constantly. Will this go stale?

The parts that change fast (menus, features, model names) are the parts the course deliberately doesn’t lean on. What it teaches is how to give instructions, check results, and undo mistakes. That hasn’t changed since the tool launched, and it won’t, because it’s not a feature. It’s a skill. I review the course quarterly anyway, and updates are free forever.

Isn’t it risky to let an AI change files on my computer?

It can be, which is why the course doesn’t start you on anything that matters. You practice in a throwaway folder. You learn the permission prompts that let you approve or reject every single action. And before any big project, you set up version control, so every change can be rolled back with one sentence. Careful is my default setting, and the course inherits it.

Read Module 1 by email.

I’ll email you the complete first module and the cheat sheet. Not a teaser, the whole module.