Follow the steps in this guide to get your first Coder development environment

running in under 10 minutes. This guide covers the essential concepts and walks

you through creating your first workspace and running VS Code from it. You can

also get Claude Code up and running in the background!

In this quickstart, you'll:

- ✅ Install Coder server

- ✅ Create a **template** (blueprint for dev environments)

- ✅ Launch a **workspace** (your actual dev environment)

- ✅ Connect from your favorite IDE

- ✅ Optionally setup a **task** running Claude Code

Before diving in, here are the core concepts that power Coder explained through

a cooking analogy:

| Component | What It Is | Real-World Analogy |

|----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------|

| **You** | The engineer/developer/builder working | The head chef cooking the meal |

| **Templates** | A Terraform blueprint that defines your dev environment (OS, tools, resources) | Recipe for a meal |

| **Workspaces** | The actual running environment created from the template | The cooked meal |

| **Tasks** | AI-powered coding agents that run inside a workspace | Smart kitchen appliance that help you cook |

| **Users** | A developer who launches the workspace from a template and does their work inside it | The people eating the meal |

**Putting it Together:** Coder separates who _defines_ environments from who _uses_ them. Admins create and manage Templates, the recipes, while developers use those Templates to launch Workspaces, the meals. Inside those Workspaces, developers can also run Tasks, the smart kitchen appliance, to help speed up day-to-day work.

- A machine with 2+ CPU cores and 4GB+ RAM

- 10 minutes of your time

If you plan to use the built-in PostgreSQL database, ensure that the

[Visual C++ Runtime](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist#latest-microsoft-visual-c-redistributable-version)

is installed.

1. [Install Docker](https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/windows-install/).

</div>

Install the `coder` CLI to get started:

<div class="tabs">

Coder will attempt to open the setup page in your browser. If it doesn't open

automatically, go to <http://localhost:3000>.

- If you get a browser warning similar to `Secure Site Not Available`, you can

ignore the warning and continue to the setup page.

If your Coder server is on a network or cloud device, or you are having trouble

viewing the page, locate the web UI URL in Coder logs in your terminal. It looks

like `https://<CUSTOM-STRING>.<TUNNEL>.try.coder.app`. It's one of the first

lines of output, so you might have to scroll up to find it.

1. **Create your admin account:**

- Username: `yourname` (lowercase, no spaces)

- Email: `[email protected]`

- Password: Choose a strong password

You can also choose to **Continue with GitHub** instead of creating an admin

account. The first user that signs in is automatically granted admin

permissions.


Templates define what's in your development environment. Let's start simple:

1. Click **"Templates"** → **"New Template"**

2. **Choose a starter template:**

| Starter | Best For | Includes |

|-------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|

| **Docker Containers** (Recommended) | Getting started quickly, local development, prototyping | Ubuntu container with common dev tools, Docker runtime |

| **Kubernetes (Deployment)** | Cloud-native teams, scalable workspaces | Pod-based workspaces, Kubernetes orchestration |

| **AWS EC2 (Linux)** | Teams needing full VMs, AWS-native infrastructure | Full EC2 instances with AWS integration |

3. Click **"Use template"** on **Docker Containers**. Note: running this template requires Docker to be running in the background, so make sure Docker is running!

4. **Name your template:**

- Name: `quickstart`

- Display name: `quickstart doc template`

- Description: `Provision Docker containers as Coder workspaces`


1. Click **"Save"**

**What just happened?** You defined a template — a reusable blueprint for dev

environments — in your Coder deployment. It's now stored in your organization's

template list, where you and any teammates in the same org can create workspaces

from it. Let's launch one.

Select **VS Code Desktop** to install the Coder extension and connect to your

Coder workspace.


You now have:

- **Coder server** running locally

- **A template** defining your environment

- **A workspace** running that environment

- **IDE access** to code remotely

Now that you have your own workspace running, you can start exploring more

advanced capabilities that Coder offers.

- [Learn more about running Coder Tasks and our recommended Best Practices](https://coder.com/docs/ai-coder/best-practices)

- [Read about managing Workspaces for your team](https://coder.com/docs/user-guides/workspace-management)

- [Read about implementing monitoring tools for your Coder Deployment](https://coder.com/docs/admin/monitoring)

Coder Tasks is an interface that allows you to run and manage coding agents like

Claude Code within a given Workspace. Tasks become available when the Template for a Workspace has the `coder_ai_task` resource and `coder_parameter` named `AI Prompt` defined in its source code.

In other words, any existing template can become a Task template by adding in that

resource and parameter.

Coder maintains the [Tasks on Docker](https://registry.coder.com/templates/coder-labs/tasks-docker?_gl=1*19yewmn*_gcl_au*MTc0MzUwMTQ2NC4xNzU2MzA3MDkxLjk3NTM3MjgyNy4xNzU3Njg2NDY2LjE3NTc2ODc0Mzc.*_ga*NzUxMDI1NjIxLjE3NTYzMDcwOTE.*_ga_FTQQJCDWDM*czE3NTc3MDg4MDkkbzQ1JGcxJHQxNzU3NzA4ODE4JGo1MSRsMCRoMA..) template which has Anthropic's Claude Code agent built in with a sample application. Let's try using this template by pulling it from Coder's Registry of public templates, and pushing it to your local server:

1. In the upper right hand corner, click **Use this template**

1. Open a terminal on your machine

1. Ensure your CLI is authenticated with your Coder deployment by [logging in](https://coder.com/docs/reference/cli/login)

1. Create an [API Key with Anthropic](https://console.anthropic.com/)

1. Head to the [Tasks on Docker](https://registry.coder.com/templates/coder-labs/tasks-docker?_gl=1*19yewmn*_gcl_au*MTc0MzUwMTQ2NC4xNzU2MzA3MDkxLjk3NTM3MjgyNy4xNzU3Njg2NDY2LjE3NTc2ODc0Mzc.*_ga*NzUxMDI1NjIxLjE3NTYzMDcwOTE.*_ga_FTQQJCDWDM*czE3NTc3MDg4MDkkbzQ1JGcxJHQxNzU3NzA4ODE4JGo1MSRsMCRoMA..) template

1. Clone the Coder Registry repo to your local machine

1. Switch to the template directory

1. Push the template to your Coder deployment. Note: this command differs from the registry since we're defining the Anthropic API Key as an environment variable

1. **Create the new Workspace**

1. In your Coder Deployment, click **Workspaces** in the upper left hand corner

1. Click **New workspace** and choose **tasks-docker**

1. Fill in the Workspace name. Add in an AI Prompt for Claude Code like "Make the background yellow". Click **Create workspace**

1. **See Tasks in action**

1. Once your workspace is running, click **View tasks** with your workspace. This will bring you to the Tasks view where you can see Claude Code (left panel), preview the sample application, and interact with the code in code-server. You might need to wait for Claude Code to finish changing the background color of the application.


1. Navigate to the **Tasks** tab in the upper left hand corner

1. Try typing in a new request to Claude Code: "make the background red"

1. Let's exit out of this specific Task view, so we can see all the running tasks

1. You can start a new task by prompting in the "Prompt your AI agent to start a task" box. You can select which template to run this from, so tasks-docker here, and that will spin up a new Workspace

Congratulation! You now have a Coder Task running. This demo has shown you how to spin up a task, and prompt Claude Code to change parts of your application. Learn more specifics about Coder Tasks [here](https://coder.com/docs/ai-coder/tasks).