Prerequisites and API Setup

Before building Computer Use agents, you need to set up your development environment with the right tools and API access.

Required Software

Software	Which version	Purpose
Python	Whatever the SDK currently requires — see the SDK README	SDK and scripts
Docker	Current stable	Sandboxed environment
Anthropic SDK	Latest (pip install anthropic)	API client

Why no pinned numbers? Minimum versions move, and a course that hardcodes them is wrong within a release or two. The SDK declares its own Python floor — pip enforces it and will tell you if your interpreter is too old. Pin versions in your requirements.txt, not from a tutorial table.

Getting Your API Key

1. Go to console.anthropic.com
2. Navigate to API Keys
3. Create a new key with a descriptive name
4. Store it securely (never commit to git)

# Set your API key as environment variable
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk-ant-..."

Installing the Anthropic SDK

# Create virtual environment
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate

# Install the SDK
pip install anthropic

Verify Installation

from anthropic import Anthropic

client = Anthropic()

# Test API connection
response = client.messages.create(
    model="claude-sonnet-5",
    max_tokens=100,
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
)

print(response.content[0].text)

Computer Use Beta Access

Computer Use requires the computer-use-2025-11-24 beta header — and therefore the beta endpoint:

response = client.beta.messages.create(
    model="claude-sonnet-5",
    max_tokens=4096,
    betas=["computer-use-2025-11-24"],
    # ... rest of parameters
)

Cost Considerations

Component	Cost Factor
Screenshots	Image tokens (varies by resolution)
Tool calls	Standard output tokens
Long sessions	Context window usage

Tip: Use 1024x768 resolution during development to minimize costs. Scale up for production.

Next, we'll set up Docker for a sandboxed development environment. :::