A Practical Guide to Claude Setup

Claude Code for Innovation

An 11-lesson training built around Don Barger's Claude Setup series

For anyone who wants Claude to actually know who they are

Most people use Claude like a search engine — type a question, get a generic answer, spend the next ten minutes rewriting. The fix isn't a better prompt. It's a system. This course walks you through building one — file by file, lesson by lesson — until Claude works the way you do.

Start the Curriculum → Take the Skills Assessment

New to Claude Code? Sign up at claude.ai → (we both get a free credit)

Not sure where to start? Take the 10-minute Skills Assessment first → It diagnoses your weakest dimension and tells you which lesson to do first.

What You'll Build

A Claude setup that knows who you are

By the end of this course you'll have a working set of context files that route every task to the right specialized voice — for writing, communications, technical work, presentations, and your specific domain.

🧭

An orchestrator that routes

A CLAUDE.md file that introduces you to Claude once and routes every future task to the right specialized file. Not a bio — a system.

📍

A living context document

A CLAUDE_CONTEXT.md that captures what's actually happening right now — projects, relationships, frameworks — with a built-in review date.

✍️

Your voice on demand

A three-file writing system that produces first drafts in your voice, your structure, your phrase bank. No more rewriting AI slop.

🔧

A library that compounds

A RIPEN-structured prompt library that gets better every time you use it. Your most-repeated tasks, never built from scratch again.

💬

Two voices, one person

A comms file that handles your internal voice — the sensitive emails, the peer navigation, the board briefings. Different instrument, same values.

✝️

Faithfulness over efficiency

An adaptation layer for faith-based leaders — theological framing, stewardship principles, and the human moments Claude must never touch.

The Curriculum

11 lessons. Each one builds a file.

Each lesson links to Don's full article in Notion, distills the key concepts, gives you a concrete assignment with a tangible deliverable, and lets you check it off as you go.

Haven't installed Claude Code yet? Sign up at claude.ai (we both get a free credit), then start with the 10-minute Setup lesson →

1
Setting up Claude to Know Who You Are
Deliverable: a draft "who I am" identity block
2
The Orchestrator: Building Your CLAUDE.md
Deliverable: a working CLAUDE.md with auto-load table
3
The Living Document: CLAUDE_CONTEXT.md
Deliverable: a CLAUDE_CONTEXT.md with a review date
4
Give Claude Your Voice: The Three-File Writing System
Deliverable: CLAUDE_WRITING.md + examples + quick reference
5
Build a Prompt Library: CLAUDE_PROMPTS.md
Deliverable: 3+ RIPEN-structured prompts
6
Two Voices, One Person: CLAUDE_COMMS.md
Deliverable: a comms file with a sensitive-situation playbook
7
Teach Claude Your Domain
Deliverable: one domain-specific CLAUDE_*.md
8
Claude as Developer: CLAUDE_CODING.md
Deliverable: a CLAUDE_CODING.md tuned to your stack
9
Platform Personas: Tweets, Decks, and Outputs
Deliverable: one platform-specific file (TWEETS or PRESENTATIONS)
10
Adapting Your Setup as a Faith-Based Leader
Deliverable: a stewardship addendum to your CLAUDE.md
11
The Complete System: Maintenance, Stacking, Team Rollout
Deliverable: a maintenance calendar + team rollout outline
Open the Full Curriculum →

Take-Home Resources

Tools, references, and where to go next

⚡ Which model should I use? Switch mid-session: /model
Haiku
Fastest · Cheapest

Quick file edits, doc lookups, simple refactors, tight iteration loops. The default when speed and cost matter more than depth.

Sonnet
Balanced · Daily Driver

Most coding, most writing, most analysis. If you don't have a specific reason to reach for Haiku or Opus, this is it.

Opus
Strongest · Highest Cost

Hard architecture decisions, complex multi-file refactors, code review, anything where wrong-answer cost outweighs token cost.

Default to Sonnet. Drop to Haiku for repetitive work. Reach for Opus deliberately — the cost difference per session is real.

📚

Don's Articles

Don's writing on the intersection of innovation, AI, and faith — including "A Practical Guide to Claude Setup," the series this curriculum is built on.

Read on Substack↗
📘

Claude Code Documentation

The official Anthropic docs for Claude Code — the CLI, slash commands, hooks, MCP servers, and Skills.

Anthropic Docs↗
🔧

RIPEN Prompt Builder

Don's tool for building RIPEN-structured prompts by answering a few questions. Pairs directly with Lesson 5.

ripen.donbarger.com↗
🧪

Claude API & SDK

Building Claude into your own tools? Both links open Anthropic's official console and API documentation.

Open the Anthropic Console↗ Open the Claude API Docs on Anthropic↗
🎨

Innovation Tools

The wider Innovation portfolio — FaithBot, the AI Canvas, and other production tools built on the patterns in this course.

faithbot.tools↗ AI Canvas↗
👋

Talk to Don

Stuck on a file? Want a second pair of eyes on your CLAUDE.md? Reach out and start a conversation.

Connect on LinkedIn↗

Monday Morning Action Plan

Four moves you can make this week

Don't leave with inspiration. Leave with an assignment. Each of these is a concrete first step into the curriculum — pick one and do it before Friday.

01

Install Claude Code & create a /work folder

If you haven't already, install Claude Code, point it at a working folder, and run your first session. Five minutes. Then you can do everything else in this course.

Setup
→
02

Draft your CLAUDE.md identity block

20 minutes. Lesson 1's assignment. Write down who you are, who you serve, and how you communicate. This single block changes every output Claude gives you from that point forward.

Lesson 1
→
03

Build one RIPEN prompt for your most-repeated task

Pick the task you do most often and don't love writing each time. Build one structured RIPEN prompt for it. That single entry is the start of a compound-interest prompt library.

Lesson 5
→
04

Take the Skills Assessment & pick your next lesson

Ten minutes. Six dimensions. Get an honest read on where your current Claude setup is weak — and a tailored recommendation for which lesson to do next.

Diagnostic
→

Common Questions

Before you start

Quick answers for first-time visitors. Click any question to open.

What is Claude Code, and do I need to install anything?

Claude Code is Anthropic's command-line tool that runs Claude on your computer with persistent memory of your work, your files, and your context. It's the version of Claude that reads the CLAUDE.md files this curriculum teaches you to build.

You install it once. Lesson 0 walks you through it from scratch — press Cmd+Space, type Terminal, follow eight numbered steps. No prior CLI experience required.

Do I need to be a developer to use this?

No. Most of the curriculum is about teaching Claude who you are — your voice, your context, the frameworks you actually use — not writing code. Pastors, nonprofit leaders, coaches, operators, and writers benefit just as much as developers.

Lesson 8 (CLAUDE_CODING.md) is the one technical lesson, and even it has a path for non-developers: have Claude interview you about your technical context and write the file for you.

How long does the curriculum take?

Each lesson is roughly 20–45 minutes of focused work — reading the article, building the file, and testing it. Most people pace themselves at one lesson per evening over 2–3 weeks. The Skills Assessment itself takes about 10 minutes and auto-saves your progress if you get interrupted.

Is this a paid course?

No — the curriculum, samples, and assessments are free. Claude Code itself requires a Claude account from Anthropic (free tier available; paid plans start around $20/month for unlimited use). This site is independent and not affiliated with Anthropic.

If the curriculum is useful, the floating "Support this Ministry" button at the bottom of the page funds the global missions work this content was originally built for.

What's the difference between the two assessments?

The Skills Assessment measures your personal mastery of the Claude Setup system — how well you've built your CLAUDE.md, your voice files, your prompt library, your domain file. Take it if you're building your own setup.

The Org Readiness Assessment measures your organization's overall AI readiness across leadership, data, technology, people, process, and ethics. Take it if you're leading or advising AI adoption.

Most useful taken together — see both on the assessments page.

What if I get stuck on a lesson?

Open the lesson modal and use the "See worked samples →" button to jump to filled-in examples on the Samples & Helpers page — there's a starter template plus two real-world examples for every file in the system.

Still stuck? Reach out to Don via the LinkedIn link in the Resources section above.

Will my progress save? Do I need to sign in?

You can browse the curriculum, samples, and start the assessments without signing in. Signing in (Google) lets you save lesson-complete checkmarks and your assessment results across devices, plus track your skills score over time. Sign-in is shared across the curriculum and both assessments — one click, everywhere.

Don Barger

Don Barger

Director of Innovation & AI Strategy  ·  International Mission Board

Don leads AI strategy and innovation at the International Mission Board, where Claude Code is the daily working tool behind FaithBot, the AI Canvas, the document translation engine, and a dozen smaller production tools. He wrote "A Practical Guide to Claude Setup," the series this course is built on, because most people stop at "Claude is amazing" and never build the system that makes it actually work for their specific job.

Support this Ministry