Claude Field Guide, Starter

Step 1: What you need

Goal: make sure you have the two things Claude Code needs before you install anything.

1. A paid Claude plan. Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise all work, and so does a Claude Console account. The free Claude plan doesn't include Claude Code.
2. A Windows or Mac computer that's reasonably up to date and connected to the internet. You don't need administrator rights, and you don't need to install anything else first.
3. VS Code, the free editor from Microsoft, kept up to date. Claude Code lives inside it as an extension.

There's also a terminal version; the extension is the easiest start.

Step 2: Install the extension

Goal: add Claude Code to VS Code.

1. Open VS Code.
2. Open the Extensions view: press Ctrl+Shift+X on Windows or Cmd+Shift+X on a Mac.
3. Type Claude Code in the search box.
4. Click Install on Claude Code.

Step 3: Sign in

Goal: connect the extension to your Claude plan.

1. Open any file in VS Code.
2. Click the Spark icon at the top right of the editor. You can also click the Spark icon in the left sidebar, or open the Command Palette and run Claude Code.
3. A sign-in screen appears. Click Sign in.
4. Your browser opens. Approve the sign-in there, then come back to VS Code.

Step 4: Open a folder

Goal: give Claude a place to work.

Claude works inside whatever folder you open. Start with a folder you'd be happy for it to read, like a folder of business notes or a copy of a few documents.

1. In VS Code, click File > Open Folder.
2. Pick your folder and open it.
3. Open the Claude panel with the Spark icon.

Step 5: Your first conversation

Goal: get comfortable asking Claude for things.

1. Click into the prompt box in the Claude panel.
2. Try one of these first questions:
   • "What does this project do?"
   • "Explain the folder structure."
   • "Pick the most important file in this folder and tell me what it says in plain English."
3. Read the answer, then ask a follow-up the way you'd ask a coworker.

A tip from my own early days: tell Claude what you want and why, and let it work out the how. A good ask covers the goal, what it can't guess about your business, what done looks like, what not to touch, and how much you want back. When a result disappoints, it's almost always missing one of those.

Step 6: Permission prompts and modes

Goal: know what Claude will ask before it changes anything.

• Before Claude edits a file, it may show you the change side by side and ask you to accept or reject it. Read it, then decide.
• The default mode is Auto, which edits most files without asking.
• To change the mode, click the mode label under the prompt box and pick the one you want.

Step 1: Get the pack

Goal: have the skills folder on your computer.

1. Download the skills .zip from the Guides page on this site, or get the pack from GitHub, where it's named wilson-works/claude_skills.
2. Unzip it somewhere you can find it, like your Downloads folder.

Step 2: Copy one skill into place

Goal: install meeting-digest, and only meeting-digest.

Your personal skills live in a folder called skills inside a .claude folder in your home folder:

• Windows: C:\Users\<you>\.claude\skills\
• Mac: /Users/<you>/.claude/skills/

1. Open that folder. If .claude or skills doesn't exist yet, create it.
2. From the pack, copy the whole meeting-digest folder, not only the file inside it.
3. Paste it into your skills folder.
4. Back in VS Code, if you had to create the skills folder a moment ago, type /reload-skills in the Claude panel.

Step 3: Run it

Goal: turn your last call into a digest.

1. In the Claude panel, type /meeting-digest followed by a space.
2. Paste your notes or transcript after it and press Enter.
3. If you don't have notes, type /meeting-digest recap instead. It asks you a few short questions, one at a time, about who was there, what was decided and who owes what.

To save your digests to a folder instead of only showing them on screen, open meeting-digest/SKILL.md, find Configure for your project, and put your folder's path where it says <meetings-path>. Then add --file when you run it. Most skills in the pack have that same section near the top, and that's the only setup they need.

Level

Step 1: Get a second opinion before you commit

Goal: find out how a plan could fail while you can still change it.

Skill: premortem. It pretends your plan already failed and works backward to find out why. Ask Claude "is this a good plan?" and it tends to agree with you. A premortem flips that around, so you hear the honest version.

1. Copy the premortem folder into your skills folder, the same way you did in Part 2.
2. Pick something with money or reputation on the line: a price change, a new service, a hire.
3. Type /premortem and describe the plan in a few sentences.
4. Answer its questions. It only asks what it needs: what the plan is, who it's for and what a win looks like.

Next step when you're ready: the pack's llm-council runs a question past a panel of AI advisors. It needs API keys for the models it asks, and its install notes in the pack cover that.

Level

Step 2: Write down how your business runs

Goal: turn a process that lives in your head into steps someone else can follow.

Skill: sop-writer. It interviews you like a new hire would, one question at a time, and writes a standard operating procedure a stranger could run cold.

1. Copy the sop-writer folder into your skills folder.
2. Open sop-writer/SKILL.md, find Configure for your project, and set <sops-path> to the folder where you want your SOPs saved. Or ask Claude: "Open the sop-writer skill and set the SOP folder to" followed by your folder.
3. Type /sop-writer and name a process you do all the time, like sending invoices or booking a new client.
4. Answer its questions. It asks you to walk through the last time you did it, step by step, and what goes wrong.

Level

Step 3: Keep a to-do list Claude can work from

Goal: put your ideas and fixes in one list that Claude can read and add to.

Skill: backlog. It keeps a running list of work orders, each with an ID, a priority, the details and what done looks like.

1. Copy the backlog folder into your skills folder.
2. Make a folder called backlog inside your project folder.
3. Tell Claude: "Open the backlog skill and set the backlog path to" followed by that folder. The skill sets up its list files the first time.
4. Add something: /backlog add followed by a plain description, like "Add a thank-you email after every booking."
5. See the list: /backlog.
6. When it's done: /backlog done followed by its ID.

My rule for this list: every item says what done looks like. If you can't say it, the item isn't ready.

Level

Step 4: Research while you sleep

Goal: hand Claude a list of questions at night and wake up to cited reports.

Skill: marathon-research. It works through a queue of research topics on its own. For each one it checks that the question is clear enough, searches the web, and writes a report where every claim carries its source.

1. Copy the marathon-research folder into your skills folder. For the short summaries in step 8, copy distill too.
2. Open marathon-research/SKILL.md and fill in its Configure for your project placeholders, like where to save the research. Ask Claude to do it for you if you'd rather.
3. Make a file called queue.md. Give each topic its own heading starting with ## , and write a line or two under it about what you want to know.
4. Test it first: /marathon-research dry-run. It shows you the queue and the plan without starting anything.
5. Start it: /marathon-research --queue queue.md.
6. Check on it: /marathon-research --status.
7. Stop it after the current topic: /marathon-research --stop.
8. In the morning, read the reports. The pack's distill skill cuts each one down to a short summary card, and it runs at the end of every marathon once it's installed.

Before you trust a report, click through a couple of its sources. If they hold up, the report earns your trust. If one doesn't, send it back.

Level

Step 5: Hand work to a small team

Goal: set up two helpers, one that drafts and one that checks, so no work grades itself.

In Claude Code, a helper like this is called a subagent. It's a specialist with its own conversation, instructions and tools, and Claude hands it tasks. Each one is a small text file in an agents folder, either in your home .claude folder next to skills or in your project's own .claude folder.

1. In the Claude panel, ask: "Create a subagent named drafter that writes customer emails in a warm, plain voice."
2. Then ask: "Create a subagent named checker that reviews a draft for tone, typos and anything that promises what we can't deliver. It never rewrites the draft itself. It sends back notes."
3. Give them a job: "Have the drafter write a follow-up email for a customer who asked for a quote, then have the checker review it."

The rule that runs my whole company, now in yours: the one who does the work never checks it.

When you want the full version, the pack's agent-org skill sets up a whole company of agents: chiefs who direct, an assistant who routes the work, department heads who review, and juniors who do it. It installs a message board and a guard that keeps each department in its own folders, so it's a bigger setup. That's where the Advanced Pack picks up.