Agentic Coding with Claude Code
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Harness the power of AI-assisted coding
Course outcomes
- Accelerate Code & Documentation
- Automate and Standardize Enterprise Development
- Master Terminal Operation & Workflowt
- Customize and Extend the Agent
- Seamless Integration
Course description
Join expert Ken Kousen to elevate your development skills with Claude Code, Anthropic’s agentic coding tool that operates directly in your terminal. You’ll learn to extend Claude Code with Skills for persistent domain expertise, automate workflows with Hooks, customize output styles for different contexts, and leverage specialized Subagents for complex tasks. Discover how enterprise teams use Plugins to standardize development practices across organizations.
Through hands-on exercises with real codebases spanning Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Java, you'll explore legacy code modernization, comprehensive test generation, and professional documentation creation. Master the "branch-first" workflow for safe experimentation and learn to integrate Claude Code with your existing development tools including VS Code and git.
By the end of this course, you'll be equipped to integrate Claude Code into your daily workflow, create custom skills and commands for your team, and leverage AI to accelerate development while maintaining code quality and security.
What you’ll learn and how you can apply it
- Integrate Claude Code into your development process
- Use natural language commands to assist with various coding tasks
- Improve code quality and maintainability through AI-powered suggestions
- Leverage Claude Code’s Git integration for efficient version control
This live event is for you because...
- You’re a software developer or DevOps engineer who wants to become an AI-assisted software developer.
Prerequisites
- Programming experience in at least one language
- Familiarity with command-line interfaces
- Basic Git knowledge
- Experience with software development workflows
Recommended Follow-Up
- Take Reading and Maintaining Code with Generative AI (live online course with Venkat Subramaniam)
- Take AI-Assisted Test-Driven Development (live online course with Venkat Subramaniam)
- Read AI-Assisted Programming (book)
Schedule
The time frames are only estimates and may vary according to how the class is progressing.
Foundation (60 minutes)
- Installation and setup
- Interface basics and operation modes (Command, Auto-Accept, Plan)
- Natural language interaction and file referencing
- Code exploration and understanding
- The "branch-first" workflow for safe experimentation
Core Productivity Features (60 minutes)
- Test generation (unit, integration, edge cases)
- Code refactoring and modernization
- Git operations (commits, branches, pull requests)
- Documentation creation (README, API docs, inline comments)
- Multi-tool workflows and parallel execution
Customization & Configuration (45 minutes)
- CLAUDE.md files for project memory
- Custom slash commands for workflow shortcuts
- Custom statusline configuration
- Output Styles: Built-in and custom creation
- When to use each customization approach
Extensibility - Skills & Plugins (60 minutes)
- Skills System: Persistent domain expertise
- Built-in skills (xlsx, docx, pptx, pdf)
- Three-tier loading architecture
- Creating custom skills for your team
- Plugin Architecture: Team-wide standardization
- Plugin marketplace and installation
- Building team plugins
- Enterprise plugin distribution
- Hands-on: Installing and creating skills
Advanced Automation & Intelligence (45 minutes)
- Hooks: Workflow automation
- SessionEnd, PreToolUse hook types
- Security validation hooks
- Auto-formatting and test runner hooks
- Subagents: Specialized task handlers
- Plan, Explore, Testing, Documentation subagents
- Automatic activation and model selection
- Extended Thinking & Plan Mode
- Hands-on: Configuring hooks and using Plan Mode
Integration & Best Practices (30 minutes)
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration
- VS Code Extension (beta)
- SDK usage (TypeScript, Python, Command Line)
- Cost monitoring and permission management
- Enterprise team collaboration strategies
- Final Q&A and next steps
Your Instructor
Ken Kousen
Ken Kousen is the author of the Kotlin Cookbook (O'Reilly), Modern Java Recipes (O'Reilly), Gradle Recipes for Android (O’Reilly), and Making Java Groovy (Manning), as well as O’Reilly video courses in Android, Groovy, Gradle, advanced Java, and Spring. A JavaOne Rock Star, he’s a regular speaker on the No Fluff Just Stuff conference tour and has spoken at conferences all over the world. Through his company, Kousen I.T., Inc., he’s taught software development training courses to thousands of students.
Skills covered
- Claude
- Coding Practices