Claude Code: Up and Running: Harness the Power of Agentic Coding

by Ken Kousen

Claude Code is Anthropic's agentic coding tool for the terminal, designed as an autonomous agent rather than a suggestion engine. It reads files, writes code across multiple files, executes shell commands, works with Git, and connects to external services through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). If you're comfortable in the terminal, but new to agentic AI tools, this book is your starting point. You'll learn what the documentation doesn't where Claude Code looks for CLAUDE.md files, how skill path resolution works, and when headless mode beats an interactive session.


In Claude Up and Running, educator and Java Champion Ken Kousen takes you through hands-on examples covering permissions, trust levels, context windows, MCP integrations, model switching, custom slash commands, and multi-agent workflows. A companion GitHub repository with CLAUDE.md templates, hooks, and MCP snippets remains a useful resource long after your first read.


Install and authenticate Claude Code within 15 minutes
Configure CLAUDE.md files and project-specific behavior
Connect external services through MCP integrations
Work with permissions, trust levels, and context windows
Run Claude Code in terminal, IDE, and CI/CD environments

Genres: Artificial Intelligence

254 pages, Paperback

Expected publication March 2, 2027

About the author

I am the author of five books, four about software development and one about managing your manager. My technical books are "Kotlin Cookbook", "Modern Java Recipes", and "Gradle Recipes for Android", all from O'Reilly Media, and "Making Java Groovy" from Manning.

My latest book is called "Help Your Boss Help You" and is all about building a relationship with your manager that gets you what you want from your job when you want it. The book is intended for working professionals, defined as people who currently care more about doing their job well than moving through the ranks of people management, but who still have to deal with managers all the time.

I'm happy to try to answer any questions about any of my books here.