There are 11 different ways you can be using Claude code, but one way is significantly
better than all the rest. You can be using Claude code in the CLI,
in the extension,
in cursor, in Visual Studio Code, in the desktop app, in the mobile app, and many more. In this video, I'll break them all down and tell you which way you need to be using Claude code to get the most out of it, and I'll show you how to set it up and use it so you get the best results out of Claude code as possible.
Let's get into it. So here is every conceivable way you can be using Claude code right now. In a second, I'll show you the best way to be using it, but I wanna go over all the ways you can be using it right now. You can be using the CLI, so you just open up your terminal. You could be using the CLI and cursor, the extension and cursor. I actually think these two ways are the most popular ways people are using Claude code, and it's actually the wrong way to be using it for many different reasons, and I'm about to explain to you why. Yeah. The mobile app, the desktop app, and then you can be using Claude Opus in the 100 different coding tools that are out there, like AmpCode, Lovable, Anti Gravity, and Cursor. And those are all wrong, wrong, wrong as well. These are the three best ways to be using Claude code, and one of these three are significantly better than the other two as well, and we'll go over the setup of that in a second. But why not cursor? Most people who use Claude code are using it inside a cursor today while they open up the extension
or the CLI, but that is a critical mistake. There is no longer any reason to be using Claude code inside a cursor. There is nothing cursor can do that is better than Claude code. In fact, through my extensive testing in a lot of ways, you're actually downgrading
Claude code by using it inside of Cursor. I have tested out the Claude code extension in Cursor extensively,
and this is probably the most popular way people use Claude code. And it actually breaks significantly more than the extension in Versus Code. It's slower and just works worse. There is no reason to be using Claude code in Cursor at all. And if you're paying for Cursor when you're using Claude code, that's kind of a waste of money as well. And that's just at this point in time. Cursor might come out with new features tomorrow. Like, this is the fastest moving industry in humanity. Cursor can come out with new features tomorrow that makes Claude code completely extinct. But as of the time of this video,
Claude code is pretty pointless to use inside a cursor. Versus code is the purest way to be using Claude code because all cursor is is a fork of Versus code with a whole bunch of stuff tacked on top, which makes it slower and breaks things like the extension. My ClaudeCode extension cursor has broken a ton. So here are the reasons you would use any of these three methods. The ClaudeCode extension in Versus Code has a great user interface. It is clean. It is easy to look at. It has all the basic features, but it has one killer thing taking away everything, and that is its planning functionality
is significantly
worse than the plan mode in the CLI. It doesn't interview you, and it doesn't ask you questions, and that is a really big issue. And then you have the desktop app. The desktop app is fantastic. The user interface of the Claw desktop app is absolutely amazing. You can manage multiple agents. You can spin up agents in the cloud, spin up agents locally. It's like managing an entire army of AI agents.
One big deal breaker, though. There's no plan mode whatsoever.
There's zero plan mode. Plan mode is Claude Code's biggest strength, and it just does not have it, which I think is absolutely insane.
Which brings us to Claude Code CLI
in Versus code, which has the worst user interface of all of these, which has no cloud management. But here's the thing, and here's why
the CLI inside of Versus code is the absolute best. And I'll walk through this and demonstrate it all in just a second and how to set it up and how to use it and how to get the most out of it. But it has every piece of functionality
and every feature Claude code has to offer,
and it has by far the best plan mode on planet Earth, better than any other tool out there. Cursor, AmpCode,
Lovable, bolt.new.
Whatever you're using,
the plan mode in the Claude code CLI is by far the best. It asks you questions. It interviews you. It teases details out of you. It brainstorms
for you. It clarifies. It teaches you things. It is absolutely amazing, and there's no plan mode that matches up to it. And because of that,
Claude code in the CLI
inside of Visual Studio
Code is the absolute best way to be using Claude code and then get the absolute most power out of it even if you've never coded before. But how do you get the most out of it? How do you take advantage of all features, and how do you set it up? Watch this. So I am in Visual Studio Code. We are going to set up Clawd Code inside Visual Studio Code, inside the CLI. I'll show you to do this end to end and set up a project and build your own app. Visual Studio Code is completely
free to download. No subscriptions whatsoever.
I'll put a link down below. Again again, this is the most pure version of an IDE. There's there's nothing tacked on top of this at all. There's nothing that could break Claude code like you could have inside Cursor. So let's get Claude code installed and show you why it's the best. We're gonna hit command o, which will open up a folder or a new project for us. You can hit new folder here, create a new folder. I'm gonna call this AI note taking and open this up. We're gonna create an AI note taking app. You So never have to use Notion or Obsidian again.
And then what we're going to do is we're gonna hit control tilde if you're on Mac. That opens up our terminal. I right click panel position right. I like to use ClaudeCode over here on the right hand side so you get more height in it. If you don't have Claude code installed already, all you will need is this command right here, and I will put this down in the description below as well. You paste that into your terminal. You hit enter, and Claude code is all installed and all set up. From there, you just type in Claude, hit enter, and you're good to go. You are inside of Claude. Now why is Claude code in the CLI
inside of Visual Studio Code the absolute best? It appears to me it gets all the features and functionality first. So before the extension, before the desktop app, before anything else, all the features and functionality gets released to the CLI first. And that includes what I consider to be the greatest planning mode in an AI coding tool ever. Now why is this planning mode so good? Let me show you. So what we're going to do is we're going to hit shift tab here and then shift tab again. That is going to turn plan mode on. Now we're gonna start typing out what we want this app to be. So I'm gonna put in this prompt to build our note taking app. I will put this down below as well if you want to copy and paste it and put it in yourself so you can build this out alongside with me, you'll have an awesome working AI note taking app that you can use yourself afterwards. I'm gonna hit enter on this in plan mode, and it is going to start planning out our app. But what you're about to see in a second is what makes Claude code in the CLI inside Visual Studio Code better than any other way you can be using Claude code. What you can see here is it started planning, so we're starting fresh. Before I design the architecture, I have some questions to clarify about your vision. I have tested Claude code every possible way you can use it, desktop app, mobile app, inside of the extension.
None of the other ways of using Claude code does what you're about to see here. So not only is it gonna tease details out of me by asking me questions, but it's gonna do it by giving me multiple choice questions that it thought of already so I can just easily select answers and have it continue to build out the app. This is such a powerful way to build out an app. So let's look at the questions it's gonna ask me. What AI features do you want? Select all that can apply. I want an AI writing assistant. I want smart search, and I would love voice transcription.
Let and then I could even add on my own custom instructions if I want here to the fifth option. But let's hit next, and then it's gonna give me even more questions it's gonna ask me. It's gonna ask me things I didn't even think of when building out this app. What rich text features do you need? Notion like blocks recommended. So it even it even has taste and gives you recommendations based on what it thinks. So notion like block, let's do that. How should notes be stored? So let's do it in the cloud. So it's recommending to do it with the cloud with auth. I actually want it to be local browser storage for now just for the test, so let's do that. Design. What's your design preference? Minimal and clean, dark mode focused, colorful and playful. I think for this, I'd like to go with, like, a dark mode.
And then it gives me a review of all my answers. It asked me things I didn't even think about, and it gave me options I didn't even consider. AI at this point in time is so much smarter than basically any human being on planet Earth. So for it to proactively think about different ways to approach this app is going to make the apps you build out so much better, and I'm gonna submit my answers there. Claude coding the extension does not ask you multiple choice questions.
Claude in the desktop app does not have a plan mode that does any of this whatsoever,
and then Claude coding cursor regularly breaks for me. When I try to open the extension, it opens it up in the CLI. When I open it up in the CLI, sometimes it breaks. And on top of all of that, I'm paying $20 a month for Cursor. None of that is necessary. And it's now going in here, and it's actually doing web searches about comparing different note taking tools out there to research other note taking tools.
This type of web search is something I find that Claude code in the CLI does a lot more than any form of Claude code as well. It just seems so much smarter than the other versions of Claude code. So I'm gonna hit yes on this, and I have it continue. I'm gonna be honest with you. Ever since Opus four five came out, Claude code hasn't made any errors for me at all, period. Hasn't made any errors for me at all. Before Opus four five, I felt like I was getting rings of errors over and over and over again. I was spending most of my time debugging. That is no longer the case of Opus four five. So now I feel super comfortable just saying yes in auto accept for everything inside the CLI here because it's gotten so much smarter. And here we go. The full plan is built out. You can see in detail every single phase of the implementation,
all six phases,
as well as all the key features and all the files it's gonna create. This plan mode since Opus four zero five released is
mind blowing, and it is by far the best in the CLI inside Visual Studio Code. So I'm gonna hit yes on that. Again, the desktop app doesn't even have a plan mode, so you're not gonna get any of this at all. And then the extension inside Visual Studio Code, they're not asking you questions, so it's not as custom to you. Then the extension, the CLI inside cursor, the extension breaks regularly inside a cursor, and the CLI, you're paying for cursor on top of that, which there's no reason to at this point at this moment in time because quad code is by far the best in every aspect possible. Alright. Looks like it is all done. It worked for what looked like about half an hour straight, to be honest with you. What we built, all the core features, Notion like block editor, auto save, AI writing assistant, file tree sidebar, voice recording, local file storage.
Wow. It builds it all in one shot. Just like it just asked me a couple questions, and the app was built out. Let's test it out. Let's see what we got here. And boom. Look at that. That is beautiful. So you have your note editing in the middle. I can hit slash. Wow.
Look at that. It has all, like, the kind of Notion blocks you can use. Bullet list. This is a bullet.
Let's go back there. Let's see the slash here. Let's do a to do list.
This is a to do item.
I mean, it is basically just like Notion. That is pretty amazing. You have your new notes. You can create folders.
You can do an AI search and ask your questions through AI. I can even do a voice recording
if I wanna record. Wow. Look at this. This is all built in with one shot. This is amazing. What's in the settings here? So we put in our API key.
Okay. And that gets the AI functionality working. That was all one shot, and all of that was built
because of this really advanced plan mode you are only going to get in the CLI
that works the best with Visual Studio
Code. If you did this with me, you now have an awesome note taking app that you can use yourself. You can rip out Notion or whatever other note taking app you're taking, save $20 a month, and you have your own note taking app done. Out of all these other ways you could be using Claude code, I still think you should be using the Claude desktop app as well as a complement to the CLI.
The reason being is you can now, on the go, spin up Cloud Agents and take advantage of the Cloud Agents, which are a very impactful use of ClaudeCode.
Being able to give commands on the go while you're doing other things, that is great. So definitely take advantage of the desktop app as well. But if you wanna get the most powerful AI coding to a planet earth, building in the most amazing apps, you need to be using CLI inside of Versus Code. It'll save you the money of using cursor and other AI tools, and it will give you the best functionality you possibly can get. If you learned anything at all, leave a like down below. Make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications.
I also have the Vibe Coding Academy if you want a full Claude code masterclass
and you want weekly calls with me every single Friday. Link for that is down below as well. I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you learned a ton, and I will see you in the next video.