Claude Platform 101
Anthropic
Last updated June 20, 2026
Claude Platform 101 is a free, roughly forty-minute video course from Anthropic that teaches developers to build on the Claude Developer Platform from the ground up — the gap between chatting with Claude in a browser tab and wiring Claude into something you actually ship. It starts at first principles: what a single API request contains, how to read the response, and how to pick a model for the job (Opus, Sonnet, or Haiku) by running a quick evaluation rather than guessing. From there it builds the agent loop by hand so you can see how the model acts, observes, and decides, then shows how the SDK's Tool Runner collapses that scaffolding once you understand what it is doing for you. The later lessons reach into the parts most developers piece together slowly on their own: tool use and extended thinking, Anthropic's built-in tools (web search, code execution, web fetch), Skills that package a procedure once and reuse it, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that connect Claude to outside tools without hand-writing a schema, the context-management habits that keep a long-running agent inside its window and affordable, and managed agents that Anthropic runs for you in a sandbox. The demos use the TypeScript software development kit (SDK) with Node and npm; a Python SDK exists, but the examples are in TypeScript. Every lesson ends with a runnable demo, so you finish each one with working code.
What you'll learn
- Sending your first Claude API request and reading the response
- Choosing a model (Opus, Sonnet, or Haiku) by running a quick evaluation instead of guessing
- Building the agent loop by hand, then collapsing it with the SDK's Tool Runner
- Giving Claude reach with tool use, and turning on extended thinking for harder problems
- Using Anthropic's built-in tools (web search, code execution, web fetch) and packaging procedures as Skills
- Connecting Claude to outside tools with Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, without hand-writing schemas
- Managing the context window to keep a long-running agent affordable past the early turns
- Handing the loop to Anthropic with managed agents, and consuming the event stream as it runs
Frequently asked questions about Claude Platform 101
Who is Claude Platform 101 for?
Developers who have used Claude in a chat window and want to build it into their own applications — adding AI features to an existing product, or prototyping an agent from scratch — with no prior agent-building experience assumed.
Is Claude Platform 101 free?
Yes — Claude Platform 101 is completely free to take.
What are the prerequisites for Claude Platform 101?
Comfort reading and writing code in at least one language, plus basic command-line familiarity. The demos use the TypeScript SDK (@anthropic-ai/sdk) with Node and npm — you don't need to be a TypeScript expert, but you should be able to follow along and run a script. You'll need an Anthropic Console account and an API key, plus a small amount of prepaid credit to run the examples. No prior experience building with large language models is required.
Do you need to code for Claude Platform 101?
Yes — Claude Platform 101 involves hands-on coding.
Does Claude Platform 101 offer a certificate?
Yes. Free certificate of completion.
Why we suggest this course
A fast, hands-on orientation to building real applications on Claude — not prompting in a chat window. If you want the deeper treatment afterwards, Building with the Claude API is the eight-hour Python deep-dive. Two things worth knowing: it teaches Anthropic's specific platform rather than AI coding in general; and to run the examples you'll need an Anthropic Console account, an API key, and a small amount of prepaid credit.