Claude Code Install Guide | The Four Languages

Before you start

You need a Claude Pro subscription, $20 a month. That is what powers Claude Code. If you do not have one yet, sign up for Pro at claude.ai, then come back here.

You will run Claude Code in your terminal. There are other ways in (VS Code, Cursor, the Claude desktop app), and they all talk to the same Claude. The terminal is the simplest: it updates first, you have no extra app to manage, and you can move to a visual editor later without changing anything in your system. This guide uses the terminal.

Open your terminal

The terminal is how you talk to your computer by typing instead of clicking. That blank window with a blinking cursor is normal. It is waiting for you.

You do not need to memorise anything. This guide gives you every command to paste, and once Claude Code is running you just talk to it in plain language.

How to open it

🍎

Mac: press Cmd + Space, type Terminal, press Enter.

🪟

Windows: press the Windows key, type PowerShell, press Enter.

A window opens with a blinking cursor. That is your terminal. You are ready.

Every command in this guide has been tested and is safe to paste. Once Claude Code is running, it always asks before it changes anything on your computer.

🎙️ You do not have to type everything

Recent versions of Claude Code have built-in voice: type /voice and hold the spacebar to speak. It is free and needs no extra tools (if /voice is not there, update Claude Code first). You can also drag a screenshot straight into the terminal and Claude will read it.

Install Claude Code

This is the official installer from Anthropic and the recommended way in. It sets up everything on its own, with no Homebrew or Node.js needed, and keeps itself updated in the background.

Open your terminal, paste this, and press Enter:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

On Windows, open PowerShell and paste this instead:

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Wait about a minute while it downloads and sets up. You will see a message like "Installation complete" when it finishes.

Mac only: if it shows a note about your PATH (something like "~/.local/bin is not in your PATH"), paste this line and press Enter. If you did not see that note, skip to step 4.

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc

This tells your Mac where to find the claude command. On Windows, skip this step: close PowerShell and open a fresh one instead.

Type claude and press Enter. If you see Claude's welcome message, you are done.

🔧 If "claude" says command not found

On Mac: paste the PATH line from step 3, then type claude again. On Windows: close PowerShell completely and open a fresh one, then try once more. A newly installed command only shows up after the terminal restarts.

First time you run it

Claude asks you to log in to your Anthropic account, the same one you pay for Pro with. It opens a browser, you log in, you come back to the terminal. This happens once.

🔧 If the login does not go through

You will know it worked when the terminal greets you by name and waits for you to type. If no browser opened, copy the link the terminal printed and paste it into your browser yourself. If the login loops back to the same page, log out of claude.ai in that browser, then type claude again and retry. Still stuck? Take a screenshot and email it to hello@thefourlanguages.com.

If the one command did not work, there is a longer backup method with Homebrew and Node.js at the bottom of this page.

Installers change over time. If a step here does not match what you see, Anthropic's official Claude Code install guide always has the current steps.

Open Claude Code in your project

Claude Code needs to run inside your project folder. That is how it finds your root file and everything your system knows. Start it from the wrong folder and it will not know who you are.

📁 Do not have your folder yet?

Download your Part 1 system (or get it from Step 0), unzip it, then come back here.

A full walkthrough of opening your downloaded system, in the app and in the terminal. About 7 minutes.

In your terminal, go into your folder. The zip you downloaded in Step 0 unzips to a folder called four-languages-part-1, and unless you moved it, it is in your Downloads. So type:

cd ~/Downloads/four-languages-part-1

If you moved or renamed the folder, use its real place and name instead, for example cd ~/Desktop/my-business. A shortcut that always works: type cd (with a space), drag the folder from Finder (Mac) or File Explorer (Windows) into the terminal window, and press Enter.

🔧 If it says "no such file or directory"

The folder is not where the command points. Find it in Finder (Mac) or File Explorer (Windows), search for four-languages-part-1, then use the drag trick above: type cd , drag the folder into the terminal, press Enter. You will know it worked when the line ends with your folder's name.

Start Claude Code. Type claude and press Enter.

Claude reads your root file (CLAUDE.md) on its own and mentions "The Four Languages" as it starts. That means it found your project. You are in.

🔧 If Claude started but did not mention The Four Languages

You are in the wrong folder, and on Windows this happens a lot: "Extract All" often puts your folder inside a second folder with the same name. Press Ctrl+C twice to exit Claude, type cd four-languages-part-1, and start claude again. If it now mentions The Four Languages, you are in the right place.

📌 Every time you start a session

Open your terminal, type cd ~/Downloads/four-languages-part-1 (or wherever your folder lives), then claude. Two commands, that is your daily start. When you finish, type "save session" before you close, so nothing you did is lost. Save again any time the context indicator in the bottom right drops to around 10%.

Your system comes with pre-built skills. You run one by typing its name with a slash, like /onboarding or /morning, and Claude follows the instructions. You will meet the ones you need as you go. You never write any of the files yourself: you talk, Claude builds.

Stuck on an error? Screenshot it and drag it into Claude. It reads the image and tells you the next step, faster than retyping. More on this in Mental Models.

🪟 Windows: paste limitation

On Windows, the PowerShell terminal does not accept clipboard image paste into Claude Code. This is an OS-level limit, not a bug you can fix. You have three good workarounds:

Use the Claude Code desktop app on Windows. Paste works natively there. This is the recommended default for most tasks.
Save the screenshot to a folder first, then drag the file from File Explorer directly onto the terminal window. Claude receives the file path and can read it.
Use a tool like Greenshot that auto-saves screenshots to a folder you choose. Then drag from there.

Bonus tip: reassign your Windows screenshot save location to your project folder. Then you can ask Claude to read "the latest screenshot" and it will find it.

If Claude Code is out of date and an update fails with "package is busy or locked": close all Claude sessions, close your PowerShell window, then open PowerShell again as Administrator (right-click the icon, "Run as administrator"). Run claude update there. Open a fresh terminal after it finishes.

Optional

Backup install method

Most people can skip this. You only need it if the one-command installer above did not work. It installs Claude Code the longer way, through npm, which needs Node.js.

Set up Node.js first. If you do not have it, open the Expansions guide and click its second lesson, "Set Up Your Toolchain" (Homebrew and Node.js), then come back here once node --version shows a version number.

Install Claude Code with npm:

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Type claude to test, then follow the first-time login above.

Command not found after installing? Close the terminal, open a fresh one, try again. If it still fails, restart your computer and try once more.