Account creation

Learning objective

By the end of this lesson, you will have created exactly the two accounts your track needs — nothing more — and confirmed you can sign in to both in your browser.

Why this matters

You picked your track and put a number on it. This lesson creates the two accounts that track needs, in your browser, and nothing else. The accounts your project itself will need wait until Module 4, when you're minutes away from using them instead of leaving them idle for weeks.

Core read

Create them in this order: GitHub first, since both tracks need it, then your track's account.

Account 1: GitHub

Every learner creates a GitHub (a website that hosts code projects — where a project's saved versions live, on a page of its own on the internet, → GLOSSARY) account. Sign up at github.com in your browser, with an email you'll keep using. Pick a real-looking username — it's your public identity there.

For now, GitHub is where this course's material lives. Later, your own project gets a home there, and your agent handles everything that happens on it — saving versions, keeping them in sync. Creating the account is the one part that's always a person's job.

If GitHub asks for email or phone verification and the message doesn't arrive, wait — don't create a second account.

Note: Seeing a verification screen that looks different from what this lesson describes? On the course site, open the lesson chat ("Ask about this lesson") and tell it what GitHub is showing you versus what this lesson says — it can help you reconcile the difference against this exact lesson.

Account 2: your track's account

If you're on Path 1: create a Claude account at claude.ai. This is the account you'll sign into Claude Code desktop (this course's paid-track agent app, opening in its own window on your computer, → GLOSSARY) in the next lesson.

If you're on Path 2: create a ChatGPT account at chatgpt.com. This is the account you'll sign into the ChatGPT desktop app in the next lesson, where Codex (the coding agent inside the ChatGPT desktop app — the free-track counterpart to Claude Code desktop, → GLOSSARY) lives.

Either account can share the email you used for GitHub, or use a different one — whichever you'll remember.

Accounts you do NOT need yet: once you start building, this course uses two more — one to hold your project's information, one to put it on the internet. Skip both today. Module 4 creates them right when you're about to use them.

That's it. Two accounts, no more.

Exercise

1. Create your GitHub account (if you don't already have one) in your browser. Confirm you can sign in.
2. Create your track's account — Claude for Path 1, ChatGPT for Path 2. Confirm you can sign in to that one too.

Checkpoint

You've got this if you can:

• Sign into your GitHub account, in your browser.
• Sign into your track's account (Claude or ChatGPT), in your browser.
• Say, in one sentence, why you're not creating any other accounts yet.

What you just did

You created exactly the two accounts you need. Next lesson, those two accounts stop being login screens and become the app you'll spend the rest of this course working inside.