What you can (and can't) do with Claude Code

Where Claude Code shines

You've seen Claude Code organize photos, list files, and rename things. That's real, but it's also the shallow end of the pool.

File organization and batch operations. Renaming hundreds of files, sorting them into folders, converting between file types, cleaning up a messy Downloads folder. You describe the result you want, and it handles the tedious part. You can open the folder afterward and see whether it did the right thing — no guesswork.

Data analysis. Hand Claude Code a spreadsheet file (a CSV, for instance) and ask questions. "What were the top 10 products by revenue last quarter?" "Are there any duplicate entries?" "Show me a summary by region." It reads the data, runs the analysis, and gives you answers. For larger files, it writes small scripts to process everything — you don't need to understand how, just whether the answer makes sense.

Text processing. Finding and replacing text across dozens of files. Extracting specific information from a batch of documents. Converting a Word doc into a formatted web page. Summarizing long reports. If the task involves reading text and producing different text, Claude Code handles it well.

Building small tools. A pricing calculator. A dashboard that reads from a spreadsheet. A web page you can open in your browser. Claude Code can build these for you, and you'll work through exactly how in Module 5. These aren't polished software you'd ship to customers — they're useful internal tools and prototypes for your own work.

Automating repetitive tasks. Anything you do the same way every week is a candidate. Weekly reports from a CSV. Categorizing customer feedback. Renaming and filing incoming documents. Claude Code can create reusable scripts that handle these tasks on repeat.

Where it struggles

No tool is good at everything. Here's where Claude Code falls short.

Internet access is limited. Claude Code works with the files on your computer. It can't browse the web, check live websites, or pull data from online services the way you can in a browser. If your task requires live information from the internet, use Claude.ai in your browser instead — or do the research yourself and give Claude Code the downloaded files.

Very large files get slow. Claude Code handles most files without breaking a sweat, but performance drops with very large ones — roughly 50 megabytes or more. A 10,000-row spreadsheet? Fine. A 500-megabyte file exported from a database? That's too large to work with comfortably. You may need to break big files into smaller pieces first, or ask someone with more technical experience to help.

PDFs are hit or miss. Claude Code can read PDFs, but results vary. Clean, text-based PDFs work well. Scanned documents, image-heavy reports, and complex table layouts give it trouble. If you need to extract data from a tricky PDF, check the results carefully — or convert it to a different format first.

It uses your subscription quota. You covered this during installation: Claude Code shares your usage limits with Claude.ai and the desktop app. Every task you run counts against the same allowance. If you hit your limit, you'll need to wait for the five-hour reset. Bigger, more complex tasks eat through your quota faster than quick questions.

Output varies. Claude Code is not a calculator. Ask it the same question twice and you might get slightly different wording, formatting, or approach. For most tasks, that variation doesn't matter — the result is still correct. But if you need byte-for-byte identical output every time, that's not what Claude Code is built for.

When to use which tool

Claude Code isn't the only AI tool available to you. Here's how to decide what to reach for.

Use Claude.ai (the web chat) when:

• You need a quick answer or want to brainstorm
• You're drafting or editing a single document
• You want a back-and-forth conversation about a topic
• Your files are small enough to paste or upload

Use Claude Code when:

• You need to work with files on your computer
• The task involves multiple files or large datasets
• You want the result saved as actual files, not chat responses
• The task has multiple steps (organize, then rename, then sort)
• The web chat couldn't handle the file size or complexity

Ask a developer when:

• Your tool needs to serve real customers or handle sensitive data
• You need something that connects to databases or other systems
• The project has grown beyond a personal tool into something your whole team relies on
• Security, compliance, or reliability requirements are involved
• You've built a working prototype — now it needs to be robust enough for real use

Asking a developer isn't a failure. It's one of the best uses of Claude Code: build a working prototype, then hand it off. Your prototype communicates what you want far better than a written description ever could.

What's ahead

You have a realistic picture of what Claude Code can do and where its edges are. You've installed it, had your first conversations, learned the feedback loop, and know when it's the right tool.

In Module 2, you'll learn how to communicate with Claude Code well — how to give clear instructions, review what it did, and manage longer conversations. The better you get at describing what you want, the better the results.