Claude Code Level 2: Customization and Production Patterns

This advanced Claude Code course is for experienced developers who are ready to move past casual use. Across two hands-on sessions you work through the full customization stack, including Claude memory, custom slash commands, skills, hooks, MCP, custom subagent files, and production patterns.

Many engineers find their Claude Code productivity flattens after the first few weeks, and this course is the inflection point where you stop treating it as a smarter CLI and start working with it as a programmable, customizable, and team-shareable development partner. There are two good ways to arrive here: from a foundational course such as Claude Code Foundations for Developers, or from regular hands-on use that has not yet exposed you to the customization and production layer. Throughout the sessions you practice building your own CLAUDE.md, shipping a custom slash command and a skill, wiring hooks that enforce guardrails, designing subagent files for repeated specialized tasks, and refining your personal workflow.

Learners will have the opportunity to:
1. Practice extending Claude Code from a personal CLI into a programmable, customizable, and team-shareable development partner
2. Configure a three-tier CLAUDE.md hierarchy with @-imports for any repository
3. Build and ship custom slash commands and skills that automate prompts and workflows you previously did by hand
4. Wire PreToolUse and PostToolUse hooks that enforce safety guardrails
5. Design custom subagent files with pinned tools and models for specialized recurring tasks
6. Explore configuring Claude Code to run safely in headless mode within a CI pipeline
7. Compose multiple customization primitives, including memory, commands, skills, hooks, and subagent files, into a single end-to-end automated workflow
8. Practice recognizing the five canonical anti-patterns that signal customizations have gone wrong
9. Work toward hardening a personal customization kit you can defend to a senior teammate on the basis of cost vs benefit
 

Topics
- Memory and project configuration: the three-tier CLAUDE.md hierarchy, @-imports, and live editing with /memory
- Custom slash commands and skills: anatomy, when to reach for each, and composing the customization triangle
- Hooks and guardrails: the hook lifecycle, the JSON contract, and settings scope
- Custom subagent files with pinned tools, models, and system prompts
- Team patterns, headless CI, and security, including managed settings and the --dangerously debate
- Composition and anti-patterns: the customization pyramid and the anti-patterns gallery
- Hands-on labs and an end-to-end capstone workflow

Prerequisite: If you can confidently check every box below, you're ready for this course regardless of how you got the experience.

- I regularly use Claude Code or have familiarity with similar tooling like Codex.
- I review diffs before approving changes.
- I have caught at least one problematic AI-generated change during diff review.
- I intentionally use Plan Mode (Shift+Tab) when appropriate.
- I am comfortable reading and modifying small TypeScript files.
- I am comfortable working in a terminal.

Prework
Complete all of the following before Session 1. Class time is not used for installation.
- Install Node.js 18 or newer, which includes npm: https://nodejs.org
- Install git: https://git-scm.com
- Install VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com
- Install Claude Code
- Sign in once by running Claude in any terminal and following the prompts.

Includes: Access to Anthropic Claude (Pro Tier) for the duration of the training.