NY Tech Week 2026

Claude Code runs on your subscription, so everything you build tonight costs nothing extra to run in the room. Max is worth it if you'll use Claude Code regularly after.

You'll want a real editor open so you can see your files and folders as Claude Code builds them. We're teaching a system with Claude Code as the orchestrator, a CLAUDE.md directives file that tells it what to do, and Python execution scripts it writes and runs. You'll want eyes on all of that.

Either editor works. Pick one and install it now if you don't already have one:

• VS Code — free, from Microsoft. The default choice. code.visualstudio.com/download
• Cursor — VS Code, forked and built around AI. Same keyboard shortcuts. cursor.com

Already use one? You're set. Skip ahead.

Claude Code is the agent that does the actual building. It reads and writes files, runs code, and follows the directives in your CLAUDE.md file — all in plain English.

Easiest path: install the Claude Code extension inside your editor. In VS Code or Cursor, open the Extensions panel, search for Claude Code, and click Install. You'll be prompted to sign in with your Anthropic account on first use.

Prefer the terminal CLI? That works too — follow the install guide for your machine.

Two keys. Your watcher uses Firecrawl to scrape the web and the Anthropic API to think — separate from your Claude Pro/Max subscription, which is for working with you in the editor. The API is what lets your watcher run unattended later, on a schedule.

Keep both keys somewhere you can find them on Thursday — you'll drop them into a .env file in step 05.

You'll do this in your editor — not by pasting keys into a chat. Treat API keys like passwords: never paste them into Claude Code or any AI tool. They live in a .env file your code reads at runtime.

1. Create a folder wherever you keep code. Name it something like my-watcher. Anywhere works — ~/code/, ~/Documents/, Desktop — your call.
2. Open the folder in your editor. In VS Code or Cursor: File → Open Folder.
3. Confirm Claude Code is ready. If you installed the extension in step 03, you'll see the Claude panel in the sidebar. If you installed the CLI, open your editor's terminal and run claude.
4. Create a .env file in the folder root. File → New File, name it .env (with the leading dot), and paste in your two keys:

   FIRECRAWL_API_KEY=fc-your-key-here
   ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here

   Save the file. Done.

If anything trips you up, reply to your confirmation email before Thursday and we'll sort it in advance — not in the room.

By the end of the night we'll push your watcher to GitHub and set it up to run automatically on a schedule (say, 7am every morning) using GitHub Actions — free for public repos, 2,000 minutes a month free for private. Your API keys live as encrypted repository secrets, not in your code.

If you already have a GitHub account, bring it. If not, signup is one minute and the free plan is all you need.

If you want your watcher to write what it finds into a real database instead of flat files — so you can query it, build dashboards on it, or wire it into other tools later — Supabase is the easiest way. Postgres with an API and an auth layer in front of it. Free tier is plenty.

You don't need an API key yet. Just:

• Sign up at supabase.com
• Create an organization (free, takes 30 seconds)

That's it. We'll create the project and grab the keys together in the room if you want to go this route.

The folks at Supabase are supporting the night with swag — say hi at the door.

Your watcher is only as good as what you point it at. Come with answers to these four. The more specific, the better your watcher works.

• Topic. Not “AI.” Try “practical AI tools for solo consultants doing $200K to $2M.”
• Sources. 2 or 3 specific sites, blogs, or subreddits you'd actually want monitored.
• Audience. Who reads your stuff, and what they care about.
• Voice. Bring 2 or 3 short paragraphs from something you've actually written. You'll paste these in so your watcher drafts in your real voice — not generic “professional.”