Building AI Agents with the Claude Code Agent SDK

Integrating artificial intelligence into your development workflow requires more than just chat interfaces; it demands programmatic control. The Agent SDK allows you to tap directly into the Claude Code runtime to build autonomous, helpful developer agents. This text-only course guides you from the absolute basics of agentic workflows to configuring and running your own custom developer agents. You will understand how to securely connect to the runtime, issue queries, and manage agent capabilities programmatically. What you'll learn: - Understand the foundational architecture of the Claude Code runtime and the Agent SDK. - Configure secure API key authentication and establish reliable connections. - Execute programmatic queries and process runtime responses. - Implement basic tool-use patterns to let your agent interact with files and systems. - Apply modern error-handling and observability practices to monitor agent decisions. - Design structured prompts tailored for programmatic agent interactions. You will begin with core definitions and architectural concepts before moving into step-by-step written walkthroughs that demonstrate how to initialize, configure, and run your agent. Each concept is reinforced with clear explanations and practical code snippets. This course is designed for software developers and tech enthusiasts new to agentic development, requiring no prior experience with AI SDKs. Start reading today to build your first autonomous development companion.