Free course · 15 parts · Intermediate

Building with the Claude API: a hands-on course

Learn the Claude API from your first call to tools, RAG, caching, extended thinking, MCP and agents. Fifteen parts, each with a concept video and a hands-on build.

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Course outline

1
Your first Claude API call
Install, authenticate and send a message.
Coming soon
2
Conversations and system prompts
Multi-turn history and steering behavior.
Coming soon
3
Controlling the output
Temperature, streaming and stop sequences.
Coming soon
4
Structured output
Get clean JSON every time.
Coming soon
5
Prompt evaluation
Datasets, graders and a score you can improve.
Coming soon
6
Prompt engineering
Clarity, examples, XML tags and thinking.
Coming soon
7
Tool use basics
Let the model call your functions.
Coming soon
8
Tool use in practice
Multiple tools, errors and batching.
Coming soon
9
RAG
Chat with your own documents.
Coming soon
10
Prompt caching and cost
Cut your bill without cutting quality.
Coming soon
11
Extended thinking
When the extra tokens are worth it.
Coming soon
12
Images, PDFs and citations
Vision input and sourced answers.
Coming soon
13
MCP
Use and build tool servers.
Coming soon
14
Agents and workflows
Which one do you actually need?
Coming soon
15
A Claude Code workflow
My daily setup for coding with an agent.
Coming soon

From your first API call to agents, in fifteen parts. Every part has a short concept video, then a hands-on video where we build it live. The written version of each part appears on this site as its video goes live, with code you can copy.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to know Python or TypeScript for the Claude API course?

You need to be comfortable reading code in one of them. The concepts carry over to any language with an HTTP client.

Is the Claude API free to use?

No, API usage is billed per token. The course shows how to measure and reduce cost, including prompt caching.