Claude Code is Anthropic's official command-line tool that brings Claude directly into your terminal. It can read your codebase, edit files, run commands, and help you build software — all through natural language conversation.

Unlike chat-based AI tools, Claude Code operates right where you work: your terminal. It understands your project structure, can make changes across multiple files, and executes shell commands when needed.

Claude Code is an agentic coding tool — meaning it doesn't just answer questions, it takes action. It reads files, writes code, creates new files, runs tests, and handles git operations, all while asking for your permission before making changes.