Install your agent app · Ship Your First Thing

Learning objective

By the end of this lesson, you will have installed and signed in to the agent app for the path you picked, opened it for the first time, and found the setting that decides how often it asks before acting.

Why this matters

You picked a path and created its account. This lesson turns that into a real, open window on your screen. The AI coding agent (a program that reads your project files, plans changes, and writes code on your behalf — guided by a conversation with you, → GLOSSARY) you install here is the only tool: every lesson from here on happens inside this one app. Get comfortable with its window now, before there's anything at stake in it.

Core read

Whichever path you picked, you're installing one program — a normal desktop app. The one thing that may need to come first is a helper program for Claude Code desktop; the note under its steps says when, and what to do.

Claude Code desktop

If you picked the paid path, you're installing Claude Code desktop (an AI coding agent from Anthropic that opens in its own app window and does the writing and editing for you, → GLOSSARY).

Step 1 — Download. Go to claude.com/download and download the installer for your computer.

Step 2 — Install. Open the downloaded file and follow the on-screen install steps, the same way you'd install any app.

Step 3 — Sign in. Launch the app from wherever your computer keeps installed apps. Sign in with the Claude account you created in the last lesson.

Step 4 — First open. The app opens with a few tabs across the top. Click Code — that's the one this course uses.

Note: Claude Code desktop needs a helper program called git (the save machinery your agent uses later; you never open it yourself, → GLOSSARY) before it can open a folder on your computer. Most Macs already have it; Windows computers don't. On Windows, do this first: download and run the installer from git-scm.com/downloads/win — the same kind of install as the app — then restart Claude Code desktop. On a Mac, carry on; you only come back here if the app asks.

If the Code tab can't open your folder and says a program is missing (the next lesson opens your first folder), your coding agent can't install it for you — it isn't running yet. Ask the app's ordinary Chat tab, or the lesson chat on the course site, to walk you through the official installer for the program the message names, one step at a time. If the installer asks for your computer's administrator password, type it into the installer's own window, never into the chat. Then reopen Claude Code desktop, open the Code tab, and confirm it opens your folder. Anything else your project needs later, your agent helps you install when it's needed.

Codex, inside the ChatGPT desktop app

If you picked the free path, you're installing the ChatGPT desktop app and using Codex (the AI coding agent that lives inside the ChatGPT desktop app — the free-track counterpart to Claude Code desktop, → GLOSSARY) from inside it.

Step 1 — Download. Go to chatgpt.com/download and download the app for your computer.

Step 2 — Install and sign in. Open the downloaded file, follow the install steps, then open the app and sign in with the ChatGPT account you created in the last lesson.

Step 3 — Find Codex. Inside the app, a switch next to the message box lets you move from ordinary chat to Codex. Select it — that's the mode this course uses.

Note: Codex is included free "for a limited time" on the Free plan. If that changes before you finish the course, the paid ChatGPT plans keep Codex working the same way — only what it costs changes.

Note: If a button name or first-run screen looks different from what's described above, apps update between course revisions. On the course site, open the lesson chat ("Ask about this lesson") and describe what you see versus what this lesson says — it can help you reconcile the difference against this exact lesson.

The setting that decides how often it asks

Your agent proposes a change, and the app can stop and ask you before it happens — a plain question like "allow this change?" with an approve and a reject choice. This is the control that matters more than any button or menu.

How often the app asks is a setting, not a guarantee, and the two apps set it differently.

Claude Code desktop has a selector next to the send button. On the plan this course uses it starts in Auto, where the app makes changes on its own while a background check watches for risky ones. Switch it to Manual so it asks before each change. That's the setting this course assumes.
The ChatGPT desktop app with Codex has a permissions control below the message box. Its usual setting lets Codex work inside the one folder you've chosen without asking, and asks before it reaches outside that folder or out to the internet.

What matters is that you know which one you're looking at, so silence never reads as "nothing happened." Your control doesn't depend on the question appearing: whether the app asked or not, you look at the result and say what should be different. The next lesson has you do exactly that on a page of your own.

What you will never be asked to do

Not in this lesson, not anywhere in this course: open a terminal, type a command, or edit a file by hand. If a website or search result tells you to do one of those things, you're off this course's path — close it and come back. Everything this course asks of you happens inside the one app window you just opened, by typing plain requests and clicking approve or reject.

Exercise

Install the app for your path (Claude Code desktop, or the ChatGPT desktop app with Codex) and sign in with the account you made in the last lesson.
Open the tab or mode this course uses — Code in Claude Code desktop, Codex in the ChatGPT desktop app.
Find the setting that controls how often the app asks: the selector next to the send button in Claude Code desktop (set it to Manual), or the permissions control below the message box in the ChatGPT desktop app (leave it as it is — read what it says). You don't need to trigger an approval yet; you only need to know where the setting lives.
Close the app, then reopen it. Confirm you're still signed in.

Checkpoint

You've got this if you can:

Open your agent app and see that it recognizes you — your account name or picture shows up somewhere in the window.
Say, in one sentence, what the approval prompt does — and why silence from it doesn't mean nothing happened.
Name the one thing this course will never ask you to do (open a terminal or type a command).

What you just did

You went from a picked path and a fresh account to an open, signed-in app window — the window every remaining lesson happens inside. The next lesson is the reason you installed it: in one sitting, your agent builds a page that's yours, and you check it, change it, and save it.