Investigating with AI

Setting up Claude Code — student guide

You need about 15 minutes. Do this before the first session.

1. Accept the invitation

You received an email invitation to the course's Claude organization. Accept it using your university address. Do not use a personal Claude account — it will not work for this course.

2. Install Claude Code

macOS / Linux:

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

Windows (PowerShell):

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

On Windows, also install Git for Windows — without it Claude Code cannot run normal shell commands.

Check it worked:

claude --version
claude doctor

3. Install uv (the Python environment manager)

macOS / Linux:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex

4. Get the project

git clone <COURSE REPO URL> my-project
cd my-project
uv sync

5. Start Claude Code

claude

A browser opens — log in with your university account. If you are working over SSH on a server, the browser cannot call back: press c, open the URL yourself, and paste the code back into the terminal.

6. Three commands to know on day one

Command What it tells you
/status Which account you're on and which config files loaded
/permissions What Claude may and may not touch in this project
/usage How much of your weekly allowance is left

Rules for this course

  1. Read CLAUDE.md in the project. It binds you as much as it binds Claude.
  2. Never put confidential data in a prompt. Files in data/restricted/ are blocked at the tool level, but you can still defeat that by pasting content yourself. Don't.
  3. Never accept a number you cannot explain. If Claude produces a regression you can't interpret, that's a failed result, not a finished one. Use /explain.
  4. Check the data handling, not just the code. The most common failure is not a crash — it is a sentinel value like 99 treated as a real answer, or survey weights silently ignored. Ask Claude to show you value_counts() before you trust a variable.
  5. Commit often. git is your undo button when an agent edits five files at once.
  6. Running out of usage is normal near a deadline. The allowance resets weekly. Plan for it; ask early if you need more.

Useful in this project