Visual Overview

Claude Code is not a new AI model. It's an orchestration layer that wraps Claude (Opus/Sonnet/Haiku) with the ability to read files, run shell commands, navigate repositories, and spawn sub-agents, all in a continuous loop until the task is done.

flowchart TB
    DEV([Developer]) --> CC

    subgraph CC["Claude Code — Orchestration Layer"]
        CLAUDE["Claude Model\n(Opus / Sonnet / Haiku)"]
        TOOLS["Tool Arsenal\n(Read · Edit · Bash · Task · Grep…)"]
        CLAUDE <--> TOOLS
    end

    CC --> ENV

    subgraph ENV["Your Development Environment"]
        FS[File System]
        GIT[Git Repository]
        SHELL[Shell / CLI]
        MCP[MCP Servers]
    end

    style CC fill:#E87E2F,color:#fff
    style CLAUDE fill:#F5E6D3,color:#333
    style TOOLS fill:#6DB3F2,color:#fff
    style DEV fill:#7BC47F,color:#333
    style FS fill:#B8B8B8,color:#333
    style GIT fill:#B8B8B8,color:#333
    style SHELL fill:#B8B8B8,color:#333
    style MCP fill:#B8B8B8,color:#333

Inspired by Mohamed Ali Ben Salem's architecture diagram. See Architecture Internals diagrams for a deeper breakdown.