Ark resource preview
Agents 101
Go from zero coding experience to comfortable with AI agents. Step-by-step, interactive, no jargon.
Author
Joe Draper
Founder, Arkwright
Coding for Everyone
Build real things. No CS degree required.
A practical guide to working alongside AI coding agents — from opening your first terminal to shipping working software.
- ➢Interactive, hands-on walkthroughs
- ➢No prior coding experience needed
- ➢Focused on Claude Code and modern AI tools
Section 2
The difference
Coding has always been possible. What changed is who can do it — and how fast.
The old way
- ✗Read Stack Overflow for hours
- ✗Copy-paste code you do not understand
- ✗Break something, panic, undo everything
- ✗Hire a developer for basic changes
- ✗Give up and use a no-code tool instead
With Claude Code
- ➢Describe what you want in plain English
- ➢Review the generated code before it runs
- ➢Ask the agent to explain anything unclear
- ➢Iterate quickly: describe, build, review, refine
- ➢Ship working software without a CS degree
Section 3
What agents excel at
Claude Code is not a search engine. It is an active agent that reads your project, makes decisions, and executes them. Here is where it shines.
Claude Code can work through large, multi-step tasks without losing context — reading files, making changes, and checking its own work.
- ➢Refactor an entire module while keeping tests passing
- ➢Add authentication to an existing app
- ➢Migrate a database schema and update all queries
Section 4
What you can build
Real examples of things UK SME teams have built with Claude Code — with zero prior coding experience.
Example prompt
“Build a simple dashboard that shows our weekly sales numbers from this CSV file. Make it easy to filter by region.”
Dashboard
Spreadsheets are fine until they are not. Internal tools give your team something faster, cleaner, and shareable without IT involvement.
Section 5
Terminal basics
You do not need to memorise these. Use them as a reference and ask Claude Code to run commands for you when you are unsure.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| pwd | Print working directory — shows where you aree.g. /Users/joe/projects/my-app |
| ls | List files and folders in the current directory |
| ls -la | List all files including hidden ones, with details |
| cd folder-name | Move into a foldere.g. cd my-project |
| cd .. | Move up one level to the parent folder |
| cd ~ | Go to your home directory |
| clear | Clear the terminal screen |
Section 6
What code actually is
Code is just text. Specifically, it is text that a computer can interpret as instructions. The file you edit is plain text. The program that runs it turns that text into actions.
Files
Every piece of code lives in a file. Files have names and extensions that tell the computer (and you) what kind of code is inside. .ts is TypeScript, .py is Python, .sql is a database query.
Folders
Folders (also called directories) group related files together. A project is just a folder with a specific structure. The structure tells your tools where to find things.
Functions
Functions are named blocks of code that do one thing. You call a function by name, pass it some inputs, and it returns an output. Most code you write is either defining functions or calling them.
Variables
Variables are named storage. They hold values — numbers, text, lists, or more complex data. You read from and write to variables constantly.
The terminal
The terminal is the text interface for talking directly to your computer. It runs commands, starts servers, installs packages, and shows you output. Most modern development workflows require it.
A typical project folder
Section 7
The software stack
Every piece of software sits on top of other software. Agentic tools like Claude Code sit closest to you — they translate plain English into instructions that travel down through the stack to the hardware.
↑ More technical, closer to the machine · ↓ More human, closer to you
Section 8
Getting started
Five steps from zero to your first Claude Code session. This takes about 20 minutes.
Install Node.js
Node.js lets your computer run JavaScript outside of a browser. It also installs npm, the package manager you will use for almost everything. Download the LTS version from nodejs.org.
NoteIf you see version numbers, you are good. If you see "command not found", restart your terminal and try again.
Section 9
Running locally & ports
When you run a web application on your own machine, it starts a local server on a port. A port is just a number that identifies which channel to use — like a radio frequency.
Sealed vault
Full access is included with Arkwright Fractional
You've seen the first 8 sections. The remaining 12 — covering ports, environment variables, agent modes, git, debugging, tech stacks, and the interactive terminal simulator — are available to Fractional clients.
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