Getting started with Claude Code - no technical knowledge needed?!

I’ve had a few conversations recently with people who are curious about Claude Code but feel locked out because they’re “not technical”. Product managers, designers, founders with ideas - people who can see the potential but assume the barrier to entry is too high.

So I wanted to write something for them. Can you really get started with Claude Code without technical knowledge?

The honest answer is: almost. You don’t need to know how to code. But you do need to understand a few foundational concepts about how software and the internet actually work. The good news is these concepts aren’t complicated, and once you have them, Claude Code becomes genuinely accessible.

What you actually need to know

Before we get into the setup, let me be upfront about the baseline knowledge that helps. You don’t need to be an expert in any of this - just familiar enough that the words don’t feel alien.

The client-server model

When you visit a website, your browser (the client) sends a request to a computer somewhere (the server), which sends back the page you see. That’s it. Every web app works this way - your browser asks for things, a server responds.

Why does this matter? Because when we build something with Claude Code, we’re building that server part. We’re creating the thing that responds when someone visits a URL.

What a terminal is

A terminal (also called command line or CLI) is just a text-based way to talk to your computer. Instead of clicking icons, you type commands. It looks intimidating at first - a blank screen with a blinking cursor - but it’s actually more direct than pointing and clicking once you get used to it.

If you’ve never used one, MDN has a solid crash course that covers the basics.

Files and folders

You’ll be working with files and folders, just like you do in Finder or Windows Explorer, but through the terminal. Commands like cd (change directory) and ls (list files) become second nature quickly.

What you need to get started

Alright, let’s get practical. Here’s what you need:

1. A Claude Pro or Max subscription

Claude Code requires a Claude Pro or Max subscription. This gives you access to the CLI tool that makes all of this possible. It’s the same subscription that gives you access to Claude on the web, so if you’re already using that, you’re set.

2. A Cloudflare account

We’re going to deploy our app to Cloudflare Workers, which is a platform that runs your code on servers all around the world. The free tier is generous enough for experimentation and small projects.

Sign up at cloudflare.com - you don’t need to add a payment method for the free tier.

3. A terminal

This is where it gets platform-specific. All of the commands and examples below are designed to be copy-pasted (or typed, if you prefer!) directly into your terminal - that’s how we’ll be interacting with everything from here on.

On Mac: You already have Terminal built in, but I’d recommend either iTerm2 for a more feature-rich experience, or my current favourite Ghostty which is fast, beautiful, and just works.

On Windows: You’ll want to install WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux), which gives you a proper Linux environment inside Windows. Microsoft has a straightforward setup guide - it’s essentially just running wsl --install in PowerShell and restarting.

Setting things up

Open your terminal. Take a breath. Let’s install the tools we need.

Install Node.js

Node.js is what lets us run JavaScript outside of a browser - it’s the engine that powers most modern web development tooling.

Head to nodejs.org/download and grab the LTS version (24+). On Mac, you can also use Homebrew: brew install node. On WSL/Linux, the download page has instructions for your package manager.

Verify it worked:

node --version

You should see something like v24.x.x.

Install Claude Code

Follow the official setup guide to install Claude Code. It’s straightforward - a single command for Mac/Linux/WSL, or a Homebrew cask if you prefer. The guide also walks you through logging in to connect it to your Claude account.

Once installed, verify it works:

claude --version

Install Wrangler

Wrangler is Cloudflare’s CLI tool for managing Workers. Install it globally:

npm install -g wrangler

Then log in:

wrangler login

This also opens your browser to authenticate with your Cloudflare account. The Cloudflare docs cover this in detail.

Your first app

Create a folder for your project and start Claude:

mkdir HelloClaude
cd HelloClaude
claude

Now you’re in Claude Code. Time for your first prompt:

Build me a skeleton Hello World app, using Hono as the server framework in a Cloudflare Worker, with a Vite dev server, Tailwind CSS for styling, and React for the frontend.

Watch it work. Claude will create files, install dependencies, configure everything. It might ask you a few clarifying questions along the way - answer them as best you can, or just let it make sensible defaults.

When it’s done, ask:

Start the app so I can view it locally in a browser.

It should run something like npm run dev and tell you to open http://localhost:5173 (or similar). Open that in your browser. You should see your Hello World app running.

Congratulations - you’ve just built a web application.

Deploy it to the world

Now let’s put it on the internet. In Claude Code:

Deploy the app to Cloudflare so I can view it remotely.

Claude will run wrangler deploy (or guide you through any setup needed), and at the end you’ll get a URL like https://hello-claude.your-subdomain.workers.dev.

Open that URL on your phone. Send it to a friend. It’s live, running on Cloudflare’s global network, and you built it.

Your second app: a todo list with a database

That was fun, but it’s not really an app - it doesn’t save anything. Let’s fix that.

Start a new session in Claude Code (/clear to reset context), then:

I want to add a simple todo list feature to this app. Users should be able to add todos, mark them complete, and delete them. Use Cloudflare D1 as the database to persist the data. Please set up the D1 database, create the schema, and build the UI.

This is where it gets interesting. Claude will:

1. Create a D1 database using Wrangler
2. Set up the database schema (a simple todos table)
3. Add API endpoints to create, read, update, and delete todos
4. Build a React UI for managing the list
5. Wire it all together

You’ll see it working through each step. If it gets confused or goes in a direction you don’t like, hit esc and guide it: “The database should be called todos-db” or “I want the UI to be minimal, just a list and an input field”.

The D1 getting started guide is useful context if you want to understand what’s happening under the hood.

When it’s done, test it locally, then deploy it again. You now have a real application with a database, running globally, that you built by describing what you wanted.

So, no technical knowledge needed?

Look, I put a question mark in the title for a reason. You don’t need to know how to code - Claude handles that part. But you do need:

• A basic mental model of how web apps work (client asks server, server responds)
• Comfort with typing commands in a terminal
• Patience to read error messages and describe them to Claude
• The willingness to say “that’s not what I wanted, try this instead”

If you have those things, Claude Code is genuinely accessible. The barrier isn’t coding knowledge anymore - it’s the ability to clearly describe what you want and iterate when the first attempt isn’t quite right.

Sound familiar? That’s basically product management.

What next?

Once you’ve got the basics working, the world opens up. Some ideas:

• Add user authentication (ask Claude to “add simple password-less auth using Cloudflare Access”)
• Make it pretty (paste a screenshot of a design you like and ask Claude to style your app similarly)
• Add more features (comments on todos, due dates, categories)
• Build something completely different - a personal blog, a link shortener, a simple API

The pattern is always the same: describe what you want, watch it build, guide it when it drifts, deploy when it works.

Once you’re comfortable with the basics and want to level up, check out my article on Guide Coding for more advanced tips on getting the most out of Claude Code.

What will you build?