Claude Code CLI · macOS & Windows

Get Claude Code running

Install the CLI, sign in, and confirm which account you're on. Below: macOS and Windows, the Console account setup, and fixes for the things that usually go wrong.

Too technical? We'll do it with you

If a terminal isn't your world, that's completely fine. Bring your laptop, find a host, and we'll get you installed and signed in together. Plenty of people turn up having never opened one.

What your machine needs

macOS: macOS 13 or later · 4 GB RAM · Apple Silicon or Intel
Windows: Windows 10 (1809) or later · 4 GB RAM · 64-bit only

1. Install the CLI

Pick your machine. Both routes install the same native binary — no Node.js required, no administrator rights, no sudo.

1
Run the installer in Terminal
This is the method Anthropic recommends, and the only one that updates itself in the background. It drops the binary in ~/.local/bin/claude.
```
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
```
Prefer Homebrew? This works too — but the cask tracks the stable channel, roughly a week behind, and never auto-updates. Upgrade it with brew upgrade claude-code; claude update will only tell you you're already current.
```
brew install --cask claude-code
```
2
Open a new Terminal window, then check it
A new window matters: the one you installed from is still holding the old PATH. Expect a version number followed by (Claude Code).
```
claude --version
```
Getting zsh: command not found: claude? The install worked, the folder just isn't on your PATH yet:
```
echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc
```
3
Optional: run the health check
claude doctor prints installation and settings diagnostics without starting a session — including whether it can reach your macOS Keychain, which is where your login gets stored.
```
claude doctor
```

2. First run and sign-in

You only do this once — Claude Code remembers the login afterwards.

1
Start it inside a project folder
cd into any project — an empty folder is fine — and run claude. It opens an interactive session and asks you to log in.
```
claude
```
2
Finish the login in your browser
A browser window opens for you to sign in. If it doesn't open, press c to copy the URL and paste it in yourself. If the browser shows you a code instead of bouncing back to the terminal — normal over WSL, SSH or in a container — paste that code at the prompt.
3
Sign in with your Console account
Choose Anthropic Console at the prompt — that's the account you'll be working from. If you happen to already have a Claude Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise subscription, signing in with that instead works exactly the same way.
4
Confirm which credential is actually live
Worth thirty seconds, because a leftover ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your shell profile silently outranks your subscription — and if that key's organization is out of credits you'll get a 403 while swearing your Pro plan is fine. Inside a session, /status shows the same thing.
```
claude auth status --text
```
Found a stale key? Clear it for this shell, then delete the export line from ~/.zshrc so it doesn't come back. In PowerShell it's Remove-Item Env:ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, and check your $PROFILE.
```
unset ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
```

3. An account and organization on platform.claude.com

This is the account you'll be working from: a Console account and your own API keys. It is a separate product from claude.ai — a Pro subscription does not include API usage, and API credits do not pay for the Claude app.

Your API credits come from us

Nothing to buy: every participant gets $200 in Claude API credits. Pick yours up from the credits page — you'll need the event code the hosts hand out.

Get your credits

1
Sign in at platform.claude.com
Continue with Google, or Continue with email for a magic link — there's no password step, so the link doubles as your email verification. Keep a phone that can receive SMS nearby: account creation asks for a number, and VoIP or Google Voice numbers get rejected.
2
Complete your organization under Settings → Organization
The organization is what actually holds your members, billing and API keys — an individual account can't invite anyone. Expect to fill in some details about the organization and what you plan to use it for; API access is gated on that.
3
Give each team its own workspace
Settings → Workspaces → Create workspace. This is the load-bearing step for a hackathon: you cannot set limits on the Default Workspace, so a key minted there is capped only by the whole organization. A named workspace gets both a Spend limits and a Rate limits tab, and each can only be set lower than the organization's. Anyone who signs in to Claude Code with a Console account rather than using a key lands in the Claude Code workspace Anthropic creates automatically — cap that one separately.
4
Invite the team under Settings → Members
Hit + Invite, paste in the addresses, and pick a role — Claude Code for people who only need the CLI, Developer for anyone who has to mint arbitrary API keys. Invitations expire after three weeks. Read the actual role dropdown rather than trusting a written list: Anthropic's own pages don't agree on it.
5
Create an API key under Settings → API keys
Create key, name it, and scope it to your team's workspace rather than leaving it in the default one. Choose an expiry of a day or a week — it's fixed at creation and can't be changed afterwards, so the three-hour preset means a key that dies before pitches.
The key starts with sk-ant- and the Console shows it exactly once. Copy it right then: a lost key can't be recovered, only replaced.
6
Hand the key to Claude Code
With the variable set, Claude Code skips the browser login entirely and asks once to approve the key instead. It remembers your answer, and you can change it later from the 'Use custom API key' toggle in /config.
```
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."
```
In PowerShell:
```
$env:ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = 'sk-ant-...'
```

console.anthropic.com now redirects to platform.claude.com, and the Claude Code docs have moved to code.claude.com. Old links and screenshots still work — they are just no longer the canonical address.

When it doesn't work

Nine failures out of ten are one of these. Grab a host if none of them fit.

command not found: claude, or 'claude' is not recognized: Almost always PATH, not a failed install — and most often just the terminal window that ran the installer. Close it, open a fresh one, try again. Still nothing: add ~/.local/bin (macOS) or %USERPROFILE%\.local\bin (Windows) to your PATH.
A 403, or 'This organization has been disabled', despite a live Pro or Max plan: An old ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your environment is outranking your subscription. Unset it and start again — this check tells you which credential is in play:
claude auth status --text
syntax error near unexpected token `<', or the installer prints HTML at you: Something between you and Anthropic served a web page instead of the script — usually a captive portal you haven't logged into yet, or a corporate filter. Get properly onto the network and retry, or install via Homebrew or winget instead.
'Failed to fetch version from downloads.claude.ai': The download host is blocked. Test it directly — on Windows spell it curl.exe, because PowerShell aliases curl to something else. Behind a proxy, set HTTP_PROXY and HTTPS_PROXY before installing.
curl -sI https://downloads.claude.ai/claude-code-releases/latest
'Claude Code does not support 32-bit Windows' on a 64-bit machine: You're in the Windows PowerShell (x86) window. Close it, open the plain 'Windows PowerShell' entry, and install again.
'cannot execute binary file: Exec format error' in WSL: That distribution is on WSL 1. Move it across from PowerShell — WSL 2 is also the only one that supports the sandboxed Bash tool.
wsl --set-version <DistroName> 2
macOS keeps asking you to log in again after a successful browser sign-in: Your login keychain is locked, or its password is out of sync, so credentials never get stored. Run claude doctor first, then unlock it by hand:
security unlock-keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db
You've lost twenty minutes and you'd rather just build: Stop debugging and take the Desktop app — it runs Claude Code without a terminal at all, on macOS and Windows. Grab it from claude.com/download and sort the CLI out another day.