How to sign in to Claude Code for the first time

Installed Clausage or Clauswitch and no account shows up? The apps are not broken; there is just nothing for them to read yet. Both apps work by reading the login Claude Code keeps on your machine, and if Claude Code has never run there, that login does not exist.

The fix is to sign in once. You do not have to use Claude Code afterwards, and you do not have to change how you work. The login has to exist; that is the whole requirement.

Install Claude Code

macOS and Linux:

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

If the shell then says claude: command not found, the installer put the command in ~/.local/bin and your shell does not look there yet. This happens on a fresh Mac account, where there is no ~/.zshrc. Add the folder to your PATH and reload:

echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Anthropic’s terminal guide covers this and other shell setups.

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

If PowerShell then says 'claude' is not recognized, the same thing has happened: the install folder is not on your PATH yet. Add it, then close PowerShell and open a new window:

$currentPath = [Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('PATH', 'User')
[Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('PATH', "$currentPath;$env:USERPROFILE\.local\bin", 'User')

The Windows troubleshooting section of the same guide covers this and the other common install errors.

If you would rather install through npm or a package manager, Anthropic’s setup documentation lists every method.

Sign in once

Open a terminal and run:

claude

The first run walks you through a short setup and opens your browser to log in. Sign in with the Claude account you want the toolkit to see. If you land in a session without being asked to log in, type /login.

Once you are signed in, you can quit (/exit). You are done with Claude Code.

That was the whole requirement

The login now lives in a config directory in your home folder, which is exactly what the toolkit reads. Open Clausage, or reload your VS Code window, and the account is there.

More than one account

Each additional account gets its own config directory and its own one-time sign-in. The mechanism, and what the toolkit automates on top of it, has its own guide: running multiple Claude accounts on one machine.