The plan
You can get genuinely productive with Claude Code in a week of short sessions. Here's a day-by-day plan using free resources: the official docs, Claude Code Academy's free lessons, and a project of your own.
Day 1: Understand the agent
Read Lesson 1: What Is Claude Code? and Lesson 2: The Agentic Loop. Goal: understand that Claude Code acts, observes and decides, and what tools it uses.
Day 2: Install and explore
Follow Lesson 3 to install. Then clone a small open-source repo and ask: "give me an overview of this codebase", "how are tests run here?" and "what would you improve first?"
Day 3: Make three small changes
On a branch in your own project, make three small, checkable changes. For each one, tell Claude how to verify it: "run the tests after." Watch how much better results get with a check.
Day 4: Plan mode
Pick something slightly bigger. Press Shift+Tab into plan mode, ask for a plan, push back on one step, then approve. Notice how many misunderstandings you catch before any code exists.
Day 5: Context hygiene
Practice /context, /compact with focus instructions, and /clear between tasks. Try /btw for a side question.
Day 6: Write your CLAUDE.md
Run /init, then cut the result down to the lines that really matter: commands, gotchas and conventions. Keep it under 50 lines.
Day 7: Review and reflect
Run /code-review on your week's changes. Write down three habits that made the biggest difference. Those are your personal Claude Code playbook.
Where to go next
After a week, you'll know the basics well. The next level (skills, subagents, MCP, hooks and automation) is where Claude Code becomes a force multiplier. That's what the full Claude Code Academy curriculum covers.