Your Own Hello World, Three Builds

This is where you take what you watched and run the same loop in your own words, with no demo to copy. Whatever you build does not have to be impressive. The point is the round trip itself, going from an idea in your head to working code on your screen.

Pick one of three

A personal landing page. The kind you could use as a portfolio or an about-me page, with sections for your name, your skills, and how someone could reach you.

A to-do list app. A small page where you add tasks, mark them complete, and delete them. A step up from a static page, because the page has to react when you click things.

A calculator. Web-based, handling basic math. Pick this if you want to see how Claude Code handles user interface logic.

If you cannot pick between the three, go with the landing page. It is closest to what you watched, and the muscle memory carries over directly.

A shape to start from

Build me a [description of what you want]. Make it [any design preference]. I want to be able to [the key actions you want it to support].

Write your own prompt in your own words instead of copying that. Part of what you are learning here is how to talk to Claude Code, and your natural language works better for that than you might expect. If you are not sure how to phrase something, your first attempt does not have to be elegant. Claude Code is forgiving, and it asks clarifying questions when the prompt is unclear.

The full cycle

Open a new terminal, type claude, give it your prompt, and see where the session takes you. Review what comes back and decide whether to accept it, reject it, or send it back for changes. When you are done, run /usage to see the breakdown.

What matters more than perfection is that you ran the whole cycle on your own, from writing the prompt to watching Claude build to reviewing the result. That is the loop you will run hundreds of times.

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