# Course Overview — Build & Sell with Claude Code

> **Course:** Build & Sell with Claude Code (10+ Hour Course)
> **Instructor:** Nick Saraev — Writer, AI Automation Entrepreneur
> **Source:** [YouTube — mpALXah_PBg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpALXah_PBg)
> **Level:** Beginner → Professional
> **Duration:** 10+ hours

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## What This Course Is

This is a complete, practical course on using **Claude Code** to build automation systems and turn them into a business. Nick Saraev built a 7-figure automated content business and distils everything he knows into this course — from zero-to-setup through to deploying production automation workflows and selling them to clients.

**The course requires no prior coding experience.** You're using Claude Code as your developer — you direct, it builds.

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## What You'll Be Able to Do After This Course

- Set up and configure Claude Code professionally, including CLAUDE.md and project memory
- Build complete, multi-step automation workflows from scratch
- Create reusable skills and deploy sub-agent teams
- Connect external APIs (Perplexity, Kie.ai, SendGrid, Beehiiv, Google OAuth)
- Deploy production-ready automations to clients
- Price, package, and sell automation services ($1,500–$10,000+ per project)
- Use Git worktrees and cloud deployment for production systems

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## Prerequisites

| Requirement | Details |
|------------|---------|
| Computer | Mac, Windows, or Linux |
| Terminal | Basic comfort (the course covers this) |
| Anthropic API Key | Get from [console.anthropic.com](https://console.anthropic.com) |
| Node.js | Required to install Claude Code via npm |
| VS Code | Recommended editor (shown throughout the course) |
| Budget | Anthropic API costs — approximately $5–20 for practice |

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## Core Philosophy

Nick Saraev's approach throughout the course:

> **"You are the architect. Claude is the builder."**

Key principles:
- **Think in workflows, not tasks** — chain tools into pipelines
- **CLAUDE.md is your project brain** — write it once, benefit forever
- **Composability beats complexity** — small, reusable tools beat monolithic scripts
- **Ship fast, iterate** — Claude Code lets you prototype in hours, not days
- **Plan mode first** — always review before auto-accepting

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## The Flagship Demo: Newsletter Automation

The course centres around a real, production-grade newsletter automation system. Visible in the course screenshot:

```
NEWSLETTERS DEMO
├── .tmp/           ← Intermediate artefacts
├── tools/          ← Reusable tool scripts
├── workflows/      ← Pipeline orchestration
├── .env            ← API credentials (never commit this)
└── CLAUDE.md       ← Project brain
```

**What it does:** Takes a topic → researches it with Perplexity → generates a full newsletter with Claude → creates infographics with Kie.ai → distributes via SendGrid + Beehiiv.

**Why it matters:** This is a sellable product. Real clients pay $500–$2,000/month for newsletter automation.

---

## Tech Stack Summary

```
Research     →  Perplexity Sonar API (PERPLEXITY_API_KEY)
                Alternative: Tavily API

Content      →  Claude claude-sonnet-4-6 (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)
                • Pass 1: Outline + section breakdown
                • Pass 2: Per-section content (parallelisable)
                • Pass 3: Full HTML assembly with inline CSS

Infographics →  Kie.ai Nanobanana — nano-banana-pro model
                POST https://api.kie.ai/api/v1/jobs/createTask
                GET  https://api.kie.ai/api/v1/jobs/queryRecord/{taskId}
                Auth: Bearer KIE_API_KEY

Distribution →  SendGrid (SENDGRID_API_KEY)
                Beehiiv (BEEHIIV_API_KEY)

Auth         →  Google OAuth (configured in .env)
```

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## Claude Code Plan Mode

A key concept shown in the screenshot — before Claude Code executes, it presents a plan:

```
Accept this plan?
Review the plan above and decide whether to proceed

1  Yes, and auto-accept      ← Execute without further prompts
2  Yes, and manually approve edits  ← Review each file change
3  No, keep planning         ← Refine the plan first
```

**Best practice:** Use option 2 (manually approve) until you understand a workflow well. Switch to option 1 (auto-accept) for well-tested pipelines.

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## Why This Matters for Your Practice

As a security engineer, Claude Code workflows map directly onto:
- **Threat intelligence pipelines** — automated research and report generation
- **Log analysis automation** — structured data extraction and summarisation
- **Detection rule generation** — automated SIEM query building
- **Incident report generation** — templated reporting with AI-assisted content

The skills in this course are transferable to defensive security automation at scale.

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*Tags: #ClaudeCode #Automation #BuildAndSell #Overview*