Claude Weekend Bootcamp — How to Use This Guide

This guide (guide.md) is a plain-text, hands-on walkthrough — no installation needed to read it, though Day 2 has you install one Claude Skill you build yourself.

How to read it

1. Open guide.md in any text editor, or convert it to PDF if you prefer reading it that way.
2. It's organized as Day 1 → Day 2, each split into two ~45-minute sessions. Do them in order — Day 2 builds directly on what Day 1 covers.
3. Keep an open claude.ai tab (or Claude Code / Claude Desktop) while you read — every session has you actually do something in Claude, not just read about it.
4. Before you start Day 1, have one real, repeated task from your own work in mind (an email you write often, a report you summarize weekly). You need this for Day 2.

What you'll have by the end

One working, installed Claude Skill — built by you, for a real task in your own work — plus the edit → reinstall → retest loop to keep improving it or build more.

Where to go next

If you'd rather start from pre-built Skills instead of writing your own from scratch, the Claude Skills Starter Kit and the Beginner Skills Pack give you ready-to-install Skills for common tasks.