One word to learn: "terminal."
A terminal is just a window where you type instructions to your computer instead of clicking. It looks intimidating and it isn't — you will only ever paste things into it and press Enter. Mac calls its terminal Terminal. Windows calls its PowerShell. That's the whole vocabulary lesson; you're ready.
There's a free official video course.
Anthropic publishes a free hands-on course, Claude Code in Action — how to steer Claude through bigger jobs, set up permissions, and trust the results. Do the steps below first (15 minutes, and you're working), then take the course this week to go deeper.
Pick your computer. Follow the pictures.
You only need one of these two blocks — Mac or Windows. The windows shown are illustrations of what your screen will look like at each step.
Open the Terminal app
Hold the ⌘ command key and press the space bar. A search bar appears in the middle of your screen. Type terminal and press Enter.
A window with plain text opens. That's the terminal. It's supposed to look boring.
Copy the install command, paste it, press Enter
Select the whole line below, copy it (⌘C), click inside the terminal window, paste it (⌘V), then press Enter.
Your terminal will print some progress text for a minute. When it stops, it should look like this:
Downloading Claude Code…
Installing to ~/.local/bin…
✔ Claude Code installed successfully.
Restart your terminal, then run: claude
Close the terminal, open it again
Quit Terminal completely (⌘Q), then open it again the same way as step 1. This is required — the computer only notices new programs in fresh windows.
Check it worked
Type this and press Enter:
2.1.x (Claude Code)
Any version number = success. "command not found" = go to troubleshooting #1 below.
Open PowerShell
Press the Windows key (bottom row, looks like four squares). Type powershell and press Enter.
A blue window opens with text ending in PS C:\Users\yourname>. The "PS" at the start matters — it means you're in the right place.
Copy the install command, paste it, press Enter
Select the line below, copy it (Ctrl+C), click inside the blue window, paste it (right-click pastes in PowerShell, or Ctrl+V), press Enter.
Downloading Claude Code…
Claude Code installed successfully.
Restart PowerShell, then run: claude
If it says "irm is not recognized" — your window says C:\ without the PS. That's Command Prompt, not PowerShell. Close it and redo step 1.
Install Git for Windows
Go to git-scm.com/downloads/win in your web browser, download the installer, run it, and click Next through every screen — the defaults are all correct.
Why: this quietly gives Claude a better set of tools for running commands. You'll never interact with it directly.
Close PowerShell, open it again
Close the blue window, then open it again exactly like step 1. Fresh windows are how the computer notices newly installed programs.
Check it worked
Type this and press Enter:
2.1.x (Claude Code)
Any version number = success. An error = troubleshooting #1 or #2 below.
Three steps and you're talking to it.
Open a terminal in the project folder
Mac: in Finder, find the Unreal project folder your lead pointed you to. Right-click it → New Terminal at Folder (near the bottom of the menu).
Windows: open the project folder in File Explorer, click once in the address bar at the top, type powershell over what's there, press Enter.
Why it matters: started here, Claude can see the project, our shared skills, and the Unreal connection. Started anywhere else, it can't.
Type claude and press Enter
✳ Welcome to Claude Code
Opening your browser to sign in…
Your web browser pops open a sign-in page. Sign in with your Lasting Light account — the one your lead gave you, not a personal one.
Sign in to Claude
Use your @lastinglight work account
Continue with your work email Continue with GoogleFirst time only, Claude also asks you to approve this project's connections (the MCP servers). Say yes — they're ours, committed in the repo.
Say something
Back in the terminal, you'll see a box waiting for your message. Type like you'd text a colleague — no special language needed:
If Claude answers with a summary of our game — you're done. You are set up. Everything else on this page is connecting extra powers, and you can come back for it later.
MCPs are how Claude gets hands.
An MCP is a plug-in connection that gives Claude new abilities — driving the Unreal editor, giving it new tools. One rule before the commands: where you add an MCP decides who gets it. Connections in the repo's .mcp.json file are shared with the whole team automatically; connections added "at user scope" are just for you — which is exactly right for anything that carries your personal API key.
This used to be a custom setup. It isn't anymore — Epic Games publishes a first-party Claude Code plugin, and UE 5.8 has an MCP server built into the editor. It exposes hundreds of tools across 30+ toolsets: actors and scenes, Blueprints, assets, materials, animation, Sequencer, Niagara, UI widgets, Control Rig, Gameplay Ability System, automation tests.
If our repo already wires this up in .mcp.json or .claude/settings.json, you get it automatically on first launch and can skip the commands. If /mcp shows nothing, install it yourself:
Two rules, both real. The Unreal editor must be open — no editor running means Claude has no hands. And you may need to enable the Toolset registries inside Unreal; skip that and the server connects but exposes nothing useful.
With the editor open, type /mcp in your Claude session. You want to see this:
MCP servers:
✔ unreal — connected
Then prove it end to end:
Hosted servers (a URL):
Local servers (a program on your machine):
But check for a plugin first. Many connectors now live in Anthropic's official marketplace, which is one line and stays current on its own — no URL to look up, no package to trust:
Don't guess at either shape. Every connector we've verified — Unreal, Sentry, Perforce, Jira, GitHub, Slack, Figma, Notion, Blender and more — has a real copy-pasteable command on the Connections page, with a note on how much to trust it.
And inside any session, /mcp shows live status for every connection, and is where you complete sign-in for servers that use OAuth.
Shared tools go in the repo. Keys stay personal.
If you set up an MCP the whole team should have, don't post instructions in chat — add it to .mcp.json or .claude/settings.json at project scope (with no secrets in it) and PR it, so everyone gets it on next pull. Anything that needs your API key gets added with -s user and never leaves your machine. Whoever owns our repo config can go further and push connectors, playbooks, and guardrails to every machine automatically — that's Studio Setup.
The five failures and their fixes.
"claude: command not found" right after installing
Close the terminal completely and open a new one — the installer updates your setup, but only brand-new terminal windows see it. Still failing? Re-run the install command from section 01 and read its last line carefully.
Windows: "irm is not recognized" or "&& is not a valid statement separator"
You're in the wrong window. Look at your prompt: PS C:\ means PowerShell (correct for our commands). Plain C:\ without the PS means Command Prompt — close it and open PowerShell instead (section 01, step 1).
/mcp shows unreal as failed or missing
Checklist, in order: Is the Unreal editor actually open? Is the MCP plugin enabled (in Unreal: Edit → Plugins → search for our MCP plugin → check the box → restart the editor)? Did you start claude from inside the project folder? Did you approve the project's servers when first asked? One of those four is it, in that order of likelihood.
Signed in but Claude says no access
You signed into a personal account instead of the studio one. Type /login in the session and switch to your Lasting Light account. If the studio account itself doesn't work, that's a ticket to your lead — not a you-problem.
It went sideways and I let it run too long
Type /rewind — or press Esc twice on an empty prompt. You can restore the code, the conversation, or both, to any earlier point in the session. Nothing Claude does inside a session is unrecoverable, so you never have to sit and watch it nervously.
Claude is working. Three things next.
First: install the companion app in section 05 below — it takes ten seconds and it's what you'll actually use once setup is behind you. Then: find your department page and run its first "try it" prompt — that's your real day one. Print the Cheat Sheet and pin it to your desk. This week: take the free official course, Claude Code in Action — plan mode, permissions, automation, and verifying Claude's work. It will make everything on this site click faster.
The last step, and the one you'll use most.
Everything above happens once. The companion app is what comes after: the six commands you'll type every day, prompt starters for your department you can paste straight into a session, connector installs, and the fixes for the four things that go wrong. It installs on your phone and your computer in about ten seconds, and it keeps working with no signal.
Free · no app store · no account Download the companion app Step-by-step instructions for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows, and Mac — with pictures of exactly what to tap on each one.Looks like an app
Title bar at the top, tabs along the bottom — Home, Prompts, Connect, Fixes, More. Three taps to install from Safari or Chrome. No app store involved.
Looks like a dashboard
Its own window with no browser tabs or address bar, a sidebar down the left with every section and the whole library. Pins to your taskbar or Dock.
Works with no signal
Open it once with a connection and it saves itself to your device — cheat sheet, skills, connectors, department pages. Useful on the floor and on a plane.
Do it on your phone first — that's the one you'll reach for when you're away from your desk and can't remember whether it's /rewind or /undo.