Cranot/claude-code-guide: A Live Markdown Guide to the Claude Code CLI

What Cranot/claude-code-guide Is, and What It Is Not

This repository is a single long Markdown document plus the scripts that keep it current. The README describes itself as "The Complete Claude Code CLI Guide" and states it is auto-updated every 2 days from official docs, GitHub releases and the Anthropic changelog. The top-level entries are README.md, README_OLD_BACKUP.md, update-log.md, changes.json, .update-state.json, scripts/ and .gitignore. That layout tells you what the project actually is: a generated artifact with a backup of the previous revision, a changelog, a state file and a scripts directory. There is no application code, no package manifest, no test suite.

The audience is narrow and specific. If you have already installed the Claude Code CLI and you want the flags, slash commands, hooks and MCP setup in one place rather than spread across several documentation pages, the README is written for you. The README also states it is "Optimized for both humans and AI" and marks claims with [OFFICIAL], [COMMUNITY] and [EXPERIMENTAL] tags, which is a useful signal: the tag tells you whether a line came from code.claude.com or from an observed pattern. The README does not document rollback, and it does not carry a licence file, so redistribution terms are not stated. Anyone who needs a versioned, citable reference with a release history will not find one here; no releases are listed for this repository.

The Two-Day Regeneration Pipeline Behind the README

The mechanism is a refresh loop, not a runtime. According to the README, content is pulled from three upstream sources: the official documentation at code.claude.com, the anthropics/claude-code GitHub releases, and the Anthropic changelog. The repository keeps .update-state.json to track what has been processed and changes.json to record what changed, with update-log.md as the human-readable history and README_OLD_BACKUP.md as the previous revision. The scripts/ directory holds the code that performs the update.

This design has a consequence worth naming. The guide is only as accurate as its last run, and the README states the cadence is every 2 days rather than continuous. A flag added to the CLI on a day the pipeline does not run will be missing from the file until the next cycle, and a flag removed upstream may linger for the same window. The [EXPERIMENTAL] tag exists precisely because some entries are unverified, which means the maintainers are aware that the aggregation can outrun confirmation. Treat update-log.md as the record of what the pipeline actually ingested, and treat the tag on any given line as the confidence level attached to it.

Installing the Claude Code CLI the Guide Points You To

The guide does not install itself; it documents how to install the CLI it covers. The README gives a quick install for macOS, Linux and WSL via a curl pipe to bash, and a PowerShell one-liner for Windows, plus Homebrew, WinGet and NPM alternatives. The NPM route is explicitly marked deprecated in the README in favour of the native installer.

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

After running that, the README says to verify with the version flag, which should print the installed CLI version.

claude --version

Once the CLI is present, the guide's quick reference is the part you will actually use. It lists the interactive start command, print mode for non-interactive runs, and session continuation and resumption.

claude                    # Start interactive session
claude -p "task"          # Print mode (non-interactive)
claude --continue         # Continue last session
claude --resume <id>      # Resume specific session

The README also documents in-session slash commands such as /help, /exit and /compact, and a discovery group (/commands, /hooks, /skills, /plugin) for listing what is configured. Note that the flags shown here are copied from the README's CLI Flags Reference, which the README attributes to the official CLI reference page; if a flag does not behave as described, the upstream page is the authority, not this file.

Where the Aggregated Reference Breaks Down

The failure mode is version skew, and it is structural rather than accidental. A generated reference that samples upstream every two days will describe a CLI surface that moves between samples. The README's own tagging scheme concedes this: [OFFICIAL] means the line came from code.claude.com, [COMMUNITY] means an observed pattern, and [EXPERIMENTAL] means unverified. A reader who skims past the tags and treats every line as equally authoritative is using the file against its own design.

There are two other limits. First, the repository has no licence file, so the terms under which you may copy or redistribute the content are not stated. Second, the last push was on 2026-07-27, so the two-day cadence the README advertises is not reflected in the repository's recent activity; whatever the pipeline does, the published state is from that date. If you need the current flag list for a CLI you are automating against, this is the wrong tool: go to the official CLI reference and read it there. The guide is a convenience index, not a contract.

Compared with Reading code.claude.com Directly

The obvious alternative is the official documentation itself, and the honest difference is consolidation versus authority. The official docs are split across pages the README links to separately: an overview, a CLI reference, an MCP page, a settings page and an SDK page. The guide's value is that it flattens those into one Markdown file with a table of contents covering skills, hooks, MCP, sub-agents, plugins, background sessions and agent view, and it adds a changelog section.

The trade is that you lose the guarantee of freshness and the guarantee of correctness in one move. Official pages are edited where the CLI is defined; this file is edited by a script that reads them. For a quick lookup of a slash command while you are mid-session, the flattened version is faster. For anything you are going to put in a script, a CI job or a shared team document, the official page is the one that will not silently drift. A second alternative is the CLI's own help output, which is generated by the binary you have installed and therefore cannot be out of date relative to that binary; the guide is more readable, the help output is more true.

Maintenance Cost, Licence Status and What to Check First

The maintenance cost of using this repository is mostly a reading cost. You clone it or open README.md, and you re-read it when the CLI changes. There is nothing to install, no dependency graph to keep patched, and no service to run. The cost of maintaining a fork would be different: you would inherit scripts/ and the state files, and you would need to understand what .update-state.json tracks before the pipeline would behave. The README does not document rollback, so recovering from a bad regeneration would mean restoring README_OLD_BACKUP.md by hand.

On licensing, nothing is stated. The repository has no licence identifier and no licence file appears among the top-level entries. That means the terms for reuse, modification and redistribution are unstated, and anyone planning to vendor the content into an internal handbook or a product should treat that as an open question to resolve with the repository owner rather than an assumed permission. This is not a legal opinion; it is an observation that the file is silent.

Before relying on it, check three things in order: the last push date on the repository, the most recent entry in update-log.md, and the tag on the specific line you intend to use. If the line is tagged [EXPERIMENTAL], verify it against the official CLI reference before it reaches a script.

Editorial conclusion

Read this guide if you already run the Claude Code CLI and want one Markdown file listing install commands, flags, hooks and MCP setup, and you accept that it regenerates from upstream docs every two days. Do not adopt it as your only source: the README carries no licence and no releases, and the last push was on 2026-07-27, so check the official CLI reference at code.claude.com before trusting a flag, and open update-log.md to see what the pipeline actually ingested.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Cranot/claude-code-guide on GitHub
2. Issues
3. README