Claude Code

Free tier

Agentic AI coding assistant by Anthropic that works directly in your terminal

Free tier available·Technical·Powered by Anthropic·API available

Key strengths

Deep codebase understanding via file system accessAgentic multi-step task execution in the terminalReads, writes, and runs code autonomouslyTight integration with git and shell workflowsPowered by Claude's state-of-the-art reasoning models

Free tier + paid plans

San Francisco, USA

Founded 2021

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Technical Setup & API Usage

Installation

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

Authentication

Claude Code authenticates via your Claude.ai Pro subscription or a direct Anthropic API key:

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
claude

Key CLI flags

Flag	Description
`--model`	Select model (`claude-sonnet-4-5`, `claude-opus-4`, etc.)
`--allowedTools`	Restrict which tools (file read/write, bash) the agent may use
`--print` / `-p`	Non-interactive mode — pipe a prompt and receive output to stdout
`--dangerously-skip-permissions`	Skip confirmation prompts (CI/CD use)

Headless / CI usage

echo "Run the test suite and fix any type errors" | claude --print --dangerously-skip-permissions

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Claude Code supports MCP servers, allowing it to pull context from external sources (databases, APIs, documentation) during agentic runs, making it extensible for custom enterprise workflows.

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