AI_Workflow

Chapter 00 — Start Here

Day-1 question: “Is my setup even working?” Time budget: 15 minutes You’ll finish with: A confirmed working Claude Code install, a four-line settings.json, and your first successful /help.

The 3-step smoke test

Open a terminal and run:
```
claude --version
```
You should see a version string. If you see “command not found”, you don’t have Claude Code installed — see install-claude-code.md.
Run claude in any directory. At the prompt, type /help and press Enter. You should see a list of built-in commands. If /help works, your install is fine.
Read first-conversation.md — a 5-minute primer on reading Claude’s output, when to interrupt, and the three buttons you need to care about.

That’s it. You’re ready for Chapter 01.

Dig deeper

The four-line `settings.json`

TurtleWolfe’s global Claude Code settings live at ~/.claude/settings.json and are exactly four meaningful lines:

{
  "statusLine": {
    "type": "command",
    "command": "bash ~/.claude/statusline-command.sh"
  },
  "alwaysThinkingEnabled": true,
  "model": "opus"
}

Why these four:

Setting	Why
`statusLine`	Custom status line script — shows project, branch, and model in the prompt. Optional.
`alwaysThinkingEnabled: true`	Claude thinks before every response. For real work this is almost always the right call — the small latency cost is dwarfed by the quality improvement.
`model: opus`	Opus is the default. Override per-session with `/fast` for Haiku or `/model sonnet` mid-conversation.

You don’t need a status line script on Day 1. Start with just the last two lines:

{
  "alwaysThinkingEnabled": true,
  "model": "opus"
}

What lives in `~/.claude/`?

Path	What
`~/.claude/settings.json`	Global settings (the four lines above)
`~/.claude/commands/*.md`	Global slash commands available in every repo
`~/.claude/statusline-command.sh`	Optional status line script
`~/.claude/plans/*.md`	Plans from plan mode (auto-generated, safe to delete)
`~/.claude/projects//memory/.md`	Persistent memory per project

You’ll add files to ~/.claude/commands/ in Chapter 03. For now, leave it alone.

What NOT to configure on Day 1

Resist the urge to configure hooks, MCP servers, custom agents, or output styles. You don’t need them yet. Get through Chapter 01 with the four-line settings and come back to advanced config when a specific need arises.

If something broke

claude --version fails → Claude Code isn’t installed. See install-claude-code.md.
/help shows nothing → Your install is partial. Uninstall and reinstall from docs.claude.com/claude-code.
alwaysThinkingEnabled isn’t recognized → Your Claude Code is out of date. Update it.

Next: Chapter 01 — Bootstrap a Repo · All parts: the series in order

This site is open source. Improve this page.