Claude Code Hands-On Workshop

Duration: 1.5 hours (90 minutes) Format: Presentation + hands-on exercises Audience: Developers who want to learn Claude Code

What You'll Build

Each participant brainstorms and begins building their own personal hobby project using Claude Code. By the end of this workshop, you'll have a working prototype and know how to use Claude Code effectively for your future projects.

Prerequisites

Complete the pre-work guide. This covers installation, authentication, and verifying that your setup works.

Schedule

Time	Section	Format	Duration
0:00	Welcome & Brainstorm	Presentation + individual brainstorm	15 min
0:15	First Steps with Claude Code	Presentation (5 min) + Hands-on (15 min)	20 min
0:35	Effective Prompting	Presentation (5 min) + Hands-on (10 min)	15 min
0:50	CLAUDE.md & Memory	Presentation (5 min) + Hands-on (5 min)	10 min
1:00	MCP Servers	Presentation (5 min) + Hands-on (10 min)	15 min
1:15	Skills, Plugins & Agent Teams	Presentation (5 min) + Hands-on (5 min)	10 min
1:25	Wrap-up & Commit	Hands-on + presentation	5 min

Quick Reference

Keep the cheatsheet open during the workshop for quick lookups.

Presentation Slides

Slides are in the slides/ directory, one file per section. They use Marp format (markdown with --- slide separators). Speaker notes are in <!-- --> comments.

Section	Slides
Welcome & Brainstorm	slides/01-brainstorm.md
First Steps	slides/02-first-steps.md
Effective Prompting	slides/03-effective-prompting.md
CLAUDE.md & Memory	slides/04-claude-md.md
MCP Servers	slides/05-mcp-servers.md
Skills, Plugins & Agent Teams	slides/06-skills-and-commands.md
Wrap-up & Commit	slides/07-wrap-up.md

To present, install Marp and run:

# Install
npm install -g @marp-team/marp-cli

# Present with speaker notes (press P for presenter view)
marp slides/01-brainstorm.md -s

# Export all slides to PDF
marp slides/ -o slides/output/ --pdf

# Or use the Marp for VS Code extension for live preview

---

Facilitator Notes

Before the Workshop

• Send 00-prerequisites.md to participants in advance
• Test the slides with marp -s to verify presenter view and notes work
• Have 2-3 example hobby project ideas ready to demonstrate

During the Workshop

• Keep presentations short — the schedule allocates 60%+ of time to hands-on work
• Walk the room during hands-on sections; common issues:
  • Participants writing prompts that are too vague
  • Forgetting to use Plan Mode for bigger changes
  • Not reading what Claude Code is doing before approving
• Encourage participants to share their screens if they get stuck

Pacing Tips

• The brainstorm section is critical — participants who don't have a clear project idea will struggle later
• Section 02 (First Steps) is the longest hands-on block; most participants need the full 15 minutes
• Sections 04-06 can be compressed if you're running behind; the core learning happens in 01-03

After the Workshop

• Share the cheatsheet as a takeaway
• Point participants to the resources in 07-wrap-up.md