Tools & Setup

Claude Teams — Your AI Thinking Partner

Claude is where you plan, brainstorm, synthesize, and structure. It turns your messy ideas into PRDs. It critiques your work. It explains concepts. It’s your build partner for the entire course.

• Your account: Claude Teams (Standard tier) — you should have an invitation in your email
• What you’ll do: Start conversations, create projects, upload files and screenshots, ask for PRDs and critiques
• Key habit: Always read what Claude writes. Edit it. The edit is where your expertise shows up.

Lovable — Your App Builder (Week 1 Primary, Week 2 Option)

Lovable turns your PRDs into working web apps. Describe what you want in natural language, and it generates a functional prototype you can share with a URL.

• Your account: UVA Medical Design workspace — you should have an invitation
• Credit limit: 25 credits to start (raised in Week 2)
• Key rule: Share published app URLs for testing. Never invite others to the workspace (each member uses credits).
• What you’ll do: Paste PRD content, describe features, generate fresh builds daily, publish and share

Claude Code — Your AI Agent (Week 2, Optional)

Introduced on Day 6. The paradigm shift from Chat to Agent: instead of having conversations with AI, you deploy AI as a worker that interacts directly with code, commits to GitHub, and reads entire codebases.

• When: Introduced Day 6, optional for Week 2 projects
• Key difference: Chat generates from scratch each time. Agents interact with real code and understand context across files.
• Choose your path: Students pick Lovable, Claude Code, or both for Week 2 based on their project

GitHub — Your Source of Truth

GitHub stores everything: PRDs, handoff notes, reflections, app links. It tracks every change so you can see how your project evolved.

• Your account: Personal GitHub account (free)
• What you’ll do: Create repos, commit PRD files, track versions, deploy profile pages
• We’ll set up repos together on Day 1

Slack — Async Communication

Quick questions, sharing app URLs, coordination between sessions. Our back-channel.

• Workspace: UVA Medical Design
• Channels: #hds-general (whole cohort), #hds-team-a, #hds-team-b, #hds-checkins
• First task: Introduce yourself in #hds-general

Zoom — Synchronous Sessions

All live sessions run on Zoom. Single recurring link shared in Slack.

• Format: 8:30 AM exercise post, 9:00 AM group sessions, work time through early afternoon
• Sessions: Morning exercises, frame-sets, guest speakers, work time, demos

Gamma — Slide Generation

AI-powered slide generation for presentations. Used by the instructor and available to students for demo prep in Week 2.

• Account: Personal (free tier available)
• When you’ll use it: Demo prep (Day 9–10)

Confirm you can log into each of these:

• Claude Teams — accept invite, log in, start a test conversation
• Lovable — accept invite, log in, explore the interface
• Slack — join workspace, post in #hds-general
• GitHub — confirm account exists (create one at github.com/signup if needed)