Building an Event Management System with Claude Code: Claude Code Installation and Initialisation

If you follow my blog or LinkedIn, you know I’m a co-organiser of the Data & AI Community Day Durban events. Juggling the practical challenges of organising events can be rewarding. Still, I’ll admit that managing contacts and logistics comes with its share of headaches. If you’ve faced similar struggles, you’re not alone.

This post marks the launch of a series detailing my journey to develop an AI-driven contact and event management system.

• To see what other posts there are in the series, go to: Building an Event Management System with Claude Code.

The goal is to efficiently manage contacts, streamline communications, and generate actionable reports for the Data & AI Community Day Durban events. At Derivco, as an Architect Lead, my team leverages AI to accelerate development and tackle complexity. I want to use Claude Code to apply these principles to this project and share the process here.

Problem Statement

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) has been our event and contact management system for our Data & AI Community Day Durban events for a couple of years now, and it has been satisfactory. However, how we want to do things may not match fully how Brevo does it, so limitations have become apparent:

• Workflows are too generic for our events.
• Limited flexibility for managing contacts and participants.
• Reporting lacks the necessary insights for our needs.

The limitations above are some of the reasons I’m developing a new system. I’ll explore these issues and their impact in more detail in a future post.

Why Claude Code?

Suppose you’re not familiar with Claude Code. In that case, it’s Anthropic’s agentic command-line tool that allows developers to delegate coding tasks directly from their terminal. Think of it as having an AI pair programmer who can understand context, write code, run tests, and even help with debugging—all from your command line. The appeal for me is multifaceted:

• Speed of development: Instead of spending hours researching APIs or writing boilerplate code, I can focus on the business logic and user experience
• Learning opportunity: I can explore new technologies and patterns with AI assistance
• Documentation: Every interaction is naturally documented, making it easier to understand decisions later
• Quality assurance: AI can help catch potential issues early in the development process

So, what am I aiming for with this project?

Project Goals

Before diving into the installation, let me outline what I’m planning to build:

Core Features

• Event creation and management
• Contact management with segmentation
• Participant registration with custom fields
• Automated email communications
• Comprehensive reporting and analytics

The features may be developed in stages. Initially, communications and reporting/analytics might come later.

Technical Goals

Apart from leveraging Claude Code for rapid development, I have some technical goals for this project:

• Modern, responsive web application
• Clean, maintainable codebase
• Robust testing strategy
• Scalable architecture
• Security best practices

Documentation Goals

I want to document the entire process, from initial setup to deployment, so that others can learn from my experience and benefit from it. This includes:

• Share the entire development journey
• Demonstrate practical AI-assisted coding
• Provide insights for other developers
• Create a resource for event organizers

Installing Claude Code

To get started with Claude Code, you’ll need to install it on your machine (duh). The installation process varies slightly depending on your operating system, so I’ll cover the steps for both Mac and Windows.

Note: Regardless of your OS, you need to have Node.js (version 18+) installed.

Mac

Installing Claude Code on a Mac is simple. Open your terminal and follow these steps:

1. If needed, use Homebrew to install Node.js:

   1	brew install node

   Code Snippet 1: Install Node.js on Mac

2. Verify the Node.js version installed:

   1	node --version

   Code Snippet 2: Check Node.js Version

3. Run the install command for Claude Code:

   1	npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

   Code Snippet 3: Install Claude Code

4. Confirm installation by checking the version:

   1	claude --version

   Code Snippet 4: Check Claude Code Version

Claude Code is now installed. Unless you are interested in seeing how to install Claude Code on Windows, you can continue to Initialising Claude Code.

Windows

To install Claude Code on Windows, use either Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) or Git for Windows. This guide uses WSL. Open PowerShell as Administrator and:

1. Run the command to install WSL if it’s not already installed:

   1	wsl --install

   Code Snippet 5: Install WSL

WSL installs a default Linux distribution (usually Ubuntu). During setup, you will be prompted for a default user account name. Enter a username and press Enter when prompted. If you miss this prompt, installation will pause until you respond.

 NOTE: If you are using an older version of Windows (Windows 10), you may need to follow the manual installation steps outlined in the WSL documentation.

1. Once WSL is installed, open your WSL terminal from the Start menu (search for ‘WSL’ or the name of the distro you installed).

2. Make sure your Linux distribution is up to date:

   1	sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

   Code Snippet 6: Update Linux Distribution

3. Install curl to be able to download packages, and git for “git stuff”:

   1	sudo apt install curl git -y

   Code Snippet 7: Install curl and git

   NOTE: Both curl and git might be part of the distro, so if you see a message like “curl is already the newest version”, you can ignore it.

Once tools are installed, install Node.js, then Claude Code.

Installing Node.js

We have already said that Claude Code requires Node.js version 18 or newer. Since we may want to use different versions of Node.js in our development projects, I recommend using nvm (Node Version Manager) to manage Node.js versions. Here are the steps (using the WSL/distro terminal from above):

1. Install nvm (Node Version Manager):

   1	curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.3/install.sh | bash

   Code Snippet 8: Install nvm

   Close and reopen your terminal to load nvm.

2. Verify that nvm is installed correctly:

   1

   nvm -v

   Code Snippet 9: Check nvm Version

Having installed nvm, we can now install Node.js:

3. Install the latest long-term support (LTS) version of Node.js:

   1	nvm install --lts

   Code Snippet 10: Install Node.js

Next, install Claude Code.

Installing Claude Code

To install Claude Code, we will use the Node Package Manager (npm), which comes with Node.js.

1. We follow the same steps as for macOS to install Claude Code:

   1 2	# Install Claude Code npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

   Code Snippet 11: Install Claude Code

2. After installation, you verify it by running:

   1	claude --version

   Code Snippet 12: Check Claude Code Version

When I run the command in Code Snippet 12, I get the following output:

Claude Code is now installed for Mac/Windows. Next, configure it the first time you run it.

Initialising Claude Code

When you start Claude Code for the first time, it performs an initial setup, which we will examine in this section.

1. In your terminal (on Windows, use the WSL/distro terminal), create a directory to test Claude Code:

   1 2	mkdir claude-test cd claude-test

   Code Snippet 13: Create Project Directory

2. In the directory you cd:ed into, start Claude Code:

   1

   claude

   Code Snippet 14: Start Claude Code

When you run the command in Code Snippet 14, it starts Claude Code’s interactive shell. If this is the first time you run it, you will be prompted to perform some initial configuration and log in to Anthropic. You will see output similar to the following:

As you see in Figure 2, Claude Code asks you to choose a text style. After selecting a text style, you will be asked how to log in to Anthropic:

Choose whether you want to log in using a subscription or an API key. If you choose the subscription option, it will open your default web browser and ask you to authorize Claude Code to connect to your Claude chat account:

You just click on the Authorize button outlined in red in Figure 4. Clicking on the button authenticates you against your Claude subscription and opens a new page with an authentication code:

When you selected the subscription option as per Figure 3, the interactive shell changed to a form where you enter the authentication code:

Enter your authentication code that you received in the browser, and press Enter.

NOTE: If your browser doesn’t open automatically (Figure 3), you can copy the URL from the terminal as in Figure 6 (outlined in yellow), open the URL in a browser. You will see the same as in Figure 4 and proceed from there.

You see the following when you click Enter after entering the code:

Having logged in successfully, you see a message confirming that you are logged in, as in Figure 7 above, and when you press Enter again, you are almost there:

In Figure 8, you are asked to trust the files in the current directory. This is a security measure to ensure that Claude Code can access the files it needs to work with.

NOTE: Whenever you start Claude Code in a new directory, you will be asked to trust the files in that directory.

Press Enter to trust the files:

You are now in the Claude Code shell.

Using Claude Code

Claude Code is a powerful tool that can help you with various coding tasks. You can use it to generate code snippets, refactor code, write tests, and more. You can even ask it to create entire applications/systems based on your requirements. This is what we will do in subsequent posts in this series. For now, however, just do a couple of simple things to get a feel for how it works.

The assumption is that you are in the Claude Code interactive shell, as in Figure 9. If you are not, start it by running the command claude in your terminal from within the directory you want to run Claude Code.

Let’s start by examining the available shortcuts. To list shortcuts, you enter ? in the Claude Code’s textbox (highlighted in yellow in Figure 9). That displays a list of shortcuts that you can use:

These shortcuts can help you navigate and use Claude Code more efficiently.

Let’s try a simple command to get a feel for how Claude Code works. You can type /help in the input box and press Enter. This will display a list of commands that you can use. I will not discuss all the commands here. I leave that up to you to try out. However, I do want to highlight Usage Modes, which you see when you execute /help:

This illustrates the various usage modes of Claude Code. Why I bring this up is that in addition to the interactive shell, REPL mode in Figure 11 above, you can use Claude Code almost as a chatbot:

In Figure 12, you see that Claude Code is running in a non-interactive mode, where you can ask it questions and get answers without having to type commands. This is similar to how you would interact with a chatbot.

Write Code

Now, let’s finish this post by asking Claude Code to write some code. We want Claude Code to create a simple “Hello World” application in Node.js. In the interactive shell, type the following command:

1

In the current directory, can you please create a simple Hello World Node.js application with an HTML frontend.

When you press Enter, Claude Code will start generating the code for you:

As you see in Figure 13, based on the instructions I gave Claude Code (outlined in yellow), it starts planning the task (outlined in red). Part of the planning is creating and updating Todos (outlined in blue). After planning of the Todos, Claude Code starts implementing the Todos:

As shown in Figure 14, Claude Code is implementing the Todos it created during the planning phase. It creates a new file called package.json as per the plan. Before it creates the file, it asks you to confirm that you want to create the file (outlined in red in Figure 14). Claude Code will, by default, do this for all files it creates. Pausing and asking for each file can be time-consuming, so you have the option to suppress this behaviour. You see the options outlined in red in Figure 14. I suggest you do not suppress this behaviour until you are comfortable with Claude Code and how it works.

Eventually, after having created the required files, Claude Code reaches the Test the application stage. Here, it understands that npm is needed to run the application, and asks you if you want to install npm:

After you accept the installation of npm, Claude Code will install it for you and finish the code creation process:

As per Figure 16, you can now run the application by typing: npm start in the terminal, and then browsing to http://localhost:3000:

Congratulations! You have successfully created a simple “Hello World” application using Claude Code.

What’s Next?

Now that you have installed and initialised Claude Code, you can theoretically start using it to build your event management system. However, as a developer, you are likely accustomed to developing in an IDE or code editor.

You do not have to develop in the Claude Code shell, but you can hook it up to your favourite IDE. In the next post, we will explore how to set up your development environment to work seamlessly with Claude Code and your preferred IDE.

Summary

This inaugural post marks the beginning of a comprehensive series that documents the journey of building a custom contact and event management system using Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI-assisted command-line development tool. We outlined the motivation for moving away from Brevo’s generic event management platform to create a tailored solution that better serves the community’s specific needs. The post establishes clear project goals, including core features like event creation, contact management, and automated communications, alongside technical objectives focused on modern architecture, maintainable code, and robust testing practices.

The post provides detailed installation instructions for Claude Code on both Mac and Windows systems, with a particular focus on the Windows setup using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Through step-by-step guidance covering everything from initial installation to authentication and first usage, you learn how to configure Claude Code’s interactive shell and experience your first AI-assisted development task by creating a simple Node.js “Hello World” application. This hands-on demonstration showcases Claude Code’s planning capabilities, file creation process, and the collaborative nature of AI-assisted development, setting the foundation for the more complex event management system that will be built throughout the series.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to build this system and share our experiences along the way.

Finally

That’s all for now. I hope you find this information valuable. Please share your thoughts and ideas on this post, or ping me if you have any suggestions. Your input is highly valued and can help shape the direction of our discussions. If you found this post helpful, please consider sharing it with your network. Follow me on LinkedIn for more updates on this project and other AI-related topics.

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