Anthropic Hello World
Overview
Send your first message to Claude and get a response using the Messages API.
Prerequisites
- Completed
clade-install-authsetup ANTHROPIC_API_KEYenvironment variable set
Instructions
Step 1: Basic Message
import Anthropic from '@claude-ai/sdk';
const client = new Anthropic();
const message = await client.messages.create({
model: 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
max_tokens: 1024,
messages: [
{ role: 'user', content: 'What is the capital of France?' }
],
});
console.log(message.content[0].text);
// "The capital of France is Paris."
Step 2: Add a System Prompt
const message = await client.messages.create({
model: 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
max_tokens: 1024,
system: 'You are a helpful geography expert. Be concise.',
messages: [
{ role: 'user', content: 'What is the capital of France?' }
],
});
Step 3: Multi-Turn Conversation
const message = await client.messages.create({
model: 'claude-sonnet-4-20250514',
max_tokens: 1024,
messages: [
{ role: 'user', content: 'What is the capital of France?' },
{ role: 'assistant', content: 'The capital of France is Paris.' },
{ role: 'user', content: 'What is its population?' },
],
});
Python Example
import anthropic
client = anthropic.Anthropic()
message = client.messages.create(
model="claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
max_tokens=1024,
messages=[
{"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}
],
)
print(message.content[0].text)
Output
message.content[0].text— Claude's text responsemessage.model— model ID usedmessage.usage.input_tokens/message.usage.output_tokens— token countsmessage.stop_reason—end_turn,max_tokens, ortool_use
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Solution |
|-------|-------|----------|
| authentication_error | Bad API key | Check ANTHROPIC_API_KEY |
| invalid_request_error | Missing required field | Both messages and max_tokens are required |
| not_found_error | Invalid model ID | Use a valid model like claude-sonnet-4-20250514 |
Available Models
| Model | Best For | Context | Cost (input/output per MTok) |
|-------|----------|---------|------------------------------|
| claude-opus-4-20250514 | Complex reasoning | 200K | $15 / $75 |
| claude-sonnet-4-20250514 | Balanced quality + speed | 200K | $3 / $15 |
| claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 | Fast, cheap tasks | 200K | $0.80 / $4 |
Examples
See Step 1 (basic message), Step 2 (system prompt), and Step 3 (multi-turn) above. Python example included in its own section.
Resources
Next Steps
Proceed to clade-model-inference for streaming and advanced patterns.