Setting Up Your Workstation

Before you can fix a bug, send a pull request, or even read code properly, you need a place to work. So exercise one starts with an empty bench. By the end, you'll have a terminal, a package manager, Git, the GitHub command line, Node, and an A I coding agent, all ready to go, on whatever computer you use.

Start with the terminal. It's your command line, the place where you'll run everything in this book. It's also where A I coding agents live. You can't pair program with an agent if it has nowhere to work.

Next, a package manager. Instead of downloading installers and clicking through wizards, you type one command, and the software arrives. Every system has its own, and the chapter walks you through yours.

Then Git. It tracks every change to every file in a project, and it's how teams work together without writing over each other's work. Tell it who you are: your name, and the same email as your GitHub account. One more setting: new projects start on a branch called main, just like GitHub. Then a sixty second test. Make a practice folder, tell Git to start tracking it, and ask for the status. On branch main. No commits yet.

Now the GitHub command line. It lets you fork projects, open pull requests and manage issues without leaving the terminal. Sign up for a free GitHub account, then log in from the terminal. It gives you a one time code and opens your browser. Paste the code, authorize, and you're connected.

Then Node, which runs JavaScript outside the browser, and brings its own package installer along. You won't need it in the next exercise, but the later ones, building a web app and testing it, do. So install the long term support version while you're here.

Last, and optional: an A I coding agent. Claude Code needs a paid plan. Antigravity C L I has a free tier. Either works. But copy the install command from the official source, never from a random blog or a search ad. Agents run with your permissions, which makes fake installers an attractive trap.

Start Claude Code in manual mode while you learn. Then it asks before it runs anything that changes your machine. Read each command, and approve it only if you understand it. Now ask it, in plain English, to check your setup. It runs the commands and tells you what's working, and what still needs attention.

Four quick checks: Git, the GitHub command line, your login, and Node. If all four answer, you're ready. Your workshop is set up, and you have a direct line to GitHub. Next up: your first pull request.