The audit runs in your AI account — what you buy from SVO is the method, not the intelligence. This page is only what you need to reach the first command.
Claude Code does not work on a free account. In Anthropic's own documentation: “Claude Code requires a Pro, Max, Team, Enterprise, or Console account. The free Claude.ai plan does not include Claude Code access.” This applies to the free trial exactly as it does to the paid audit — in both, the AI credit is yours and is billed by Anthropic, directly to your account.
Step 01
For a one-off audit, the second usually fits: subscribing to a monthly plan to run something once makes little sense.
Step 02
The Console account is separate from the Claude site you may already use. At console.anthropic.com, sign in or create the account, open Billing and buy credits. If you just want to watch the consumption before running everything, start with the minimum amount.
🔴 Set a spending limit (daily and monthly) on the dashboard before you start — it is the only brake on your side. But leave headroom: if the credit runs out mid-run, everything the audit already wrote to disk is safe and it resumes where it stopped — whatever was being processed at that moment is lost.
Step 03
Windows (PowerShell):
irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex
macOS, Linux or WSL:
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
Official alternatives: winget install Anthropic.ClaudeCode on Windows, brew install --cask claude-code on macOS, or npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code.
Check the install. It must print a version number; if you get command not found, close and reopen the terminal.
claude --version
Step 04
Open a terminal in the folder you will work in and run:
claude
The first time, it opens your browser to sign in. Use the account that has the subscription or the credits. You do not need to create an API key for normal use. (Only if you already use ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in your environment: Claude Code then asks once whether it may use that key, instead of opening the browser.)
Checked against the official documentation on 2026-08-20 — code.claude.com/docs/en/setup. If any command here differs from their site, their site wins: tell us and we will fix it.
The next step is to measure your system — it is free, spends no tokens, and it is what defines the quote. If you just want to see the method working first, run the free trial.