Claude Platform 101
by Anthropic
Anthropic's free developer on-ramp: go from chatting with Claude to shipping agents with the API, tools, Skills, MCP and managed agents.
Overview
Claude Platform 101 is Anthropic's introductory course on the Claude Developer Platform. It is published on Claude Academy and mirrored on Anthropic's Skilljar site, and it launched in August 2026. It has 13 lessons plus a quiz, takes about 1.5 hours, and is split into five sections, with a runnable demo at the end of every lesson. Section 1 explains what the platform is, sends a first request with messages.create and reads the structured response, then picks between Fable, Opus, Sonnet and Haiku by running a simple evaluation that weighs cost and latency. Section 2, Teaching your Agent, builds the agent loop by hand before replacing it with the SDK's Tool Runner, then introduces tool use and extended thinking. Section 3, Extending your Agent, adds Anthropic's built-in web search, code execution and web fetch tools, Skills, MCP servers, and four context-management patterns that keep a long-running agent inside the context window and affordable. Section 4 explains managed agents and builds one end to end by consuming its event stream. Section 5 uses Claude Code to build against the API and to review the code an agent writes. The demos use the TypeScript SDK (@anthropic-ai/sdk) on Node, and a Python SDK is also available. You need a Claude Console API key and a small amount of prepaid credit. The course teaches the underlying mechanism before the shortcut, and it covers cost from the first section onward. Learners who finish receive a completion badge.
At a Glance
- Topic
- Agentic
- Level
- Beginner
- Format
- Course
- Cost
- Free
- Duration
- ~1.5 hours, 13 lessons plus a quiz, self-paced
- Provider
- Anthropic
- Hands-on
- Yes — code/exercises
- Certificate
- Available
What You’ll Learn
- ✓Send a first request with messages.create and read the structured response
- ✓Choose between Fable, Opus, Sonnet and Haiku by running a simple evaluation
- ✓Build the agent loop by hand, then replace it with the SDK's Tool Runner
- ✓Give Claude tools to call and use extended thinking on hard problems
- ✓Extend an agent with built-in web search, code execution, web fetch, Skills and MCP servers
- ✓Keep a long-running agent within its context window using four context-management patterns
- ✓Build a managed agent end to end by consuming its event stream
- ✓Use Claude Code to build against the API and review code an agent writes
Highlights
- •Official Anthropic course, current as of its August 2026 release, including managed agents, Skills and the Fable model tier
- •Each of the 13 lessons ends in a runnable demo rather than slides alone
- •Builds the agent loop manually before introducing the SDK's Tool Runner, so learners understand what the abstraction does
- •Short enough to finish in an afternoon: about 1.5 hours plus a quiz, with a completion badge
- •Free to take, though running the demos uses prepaid Claude API credit
Who It’s For
Best For
- ✓Developers adding Claude-powered features to an existing product
- ✓Engineers building a first agent who have only used Claude in a chat window
- ✓Teams standardizing on the Claude Developer Platform who need a shared baseline
Prerequisites
- •Comfortable reading and writing code in at least one programming language
- •Basic command-line skills and the ability to run Node.js/TypeScript scripts (a Python SDK is also available)
- •A Claude Console account with an API key and a small amount of prepaid credit
FAQ
What is Claude Platform 101?
A free Anthropic Academy video course, launched in August 2026, that takes developers from chatting with Claude to building it into their own applications. It is for programmers who have not built with an LLM API before. It covers the first API call, choosing a model, the agent loop, tool use, extended thinking, Skills, MCP, context management and managed agents, and every lesson ends with a runnable demo.
Is Claude Platform 101 free?
Claude Platform 101 is free to access.
What level is Claude Platform 101 for?
Claude Platform 101 is aimed at a beginner audience. Recommended background: Comfortable reading and writing code in at least one programming language, Basic command-line skills and the ability to run Node.js/TypeScript scripts (a Python SDK is also available), A Claude Console account with an API key and a small amount of prepaid credit.
How long does Claude Platform 101 take?
Expect roughly ~1.5 hours, 13 lessons plus a quiz, self-paced. Most learners work through it at their own pace.
What will I learn from Claude Platform 101?
You'll learn: Send a first request with messages.create and read the structured response; Choose between Fable, Opus, Sonnet and Haiku by running a simple evaluation; Build the agent loop by hand, then replace it with the SDK's Tool Runner; Give Claude tools to call and use extended thinking on hard problems; Extend an agent with built-in web search, code execution, web fetch, Skills and MCP servers; Keep a long-running agent within its context window using four context-management patterns; Build a managed agent end to end by consuming its event stream; Use Claude Code to build against the API and review code an agent writes.
Topics
Sources
This page was written from 3 sources, 2 on domains other than academy.claude.com.