How to choose a Claude Code development partner: 15 questions to ask

Choose a Claude Code partner by how they control and check the work, not by how fast they say they are. The firm or developer you want works in git, starts on a copy of your site, reviews every change Claude Code makes before it ships, and can show you that process. They are clear about what Claude Code does well, honest about what it doesn't, and they never promise outcomes no one can guarantee.

Claude Code is Anthropic's agentic coding tool: it reads a codebase, edits files and runs commands, with a person approving or steering. That power is why the partner's habits matter. A careless setup can change hundreds of pages in one run. A careful one makes the same run safe, reversible and checked.

This guide gives you the criteria, 15 questions to ask in a first call, the red flags that should end a conversation, and what a good proposal contains. It applies to any agency or freelancer, including us.

The criteria that matter

15 questions to ask a Claude Code partner

If a partner can't answer question 1 clearly, the other 14 matter less.

Red flags

• Guarantees. Promised speed-ups ("10x"), fixed savings, rankings, AI citations or "bug-free" code. No one can guarantee these.
• No review process. "Claude Code checks its own work" is not a review. Anthropic's best-practice guidance is to give Claude a check it can run, and a person still decides what ships.
• No git. Editing live files by hand or over FTP with no history means no way to see or undo what changed.
• Production access on day one. A partner who needs your live admin password before seeing a staging copy is skipping steps.
• Skipping permission prompts on your real site. Anthropic's permission modes documentation limits bypassPermissions to isolated containers and VMs.
• Secrets in chat. Asking you to paste API keys or passwords into a prompt or a shared document.
• Vague ownership. No clear answer about who owns the code, the repository and the accounts.
• Unverifiable partner claims. A stated tier you can't confirm, or "certified agency" language. Anthropic's certifications belong to individuals, not firms.

Our article on whether Claude Code is safe for a live website goes deeper into the security controls a partner should be using.

Checking Partner Network membership and certifications

Anthropic's Claude Partner Network has three public tiers (Select, Preferred and Global Premier) above a Registered entry level. Firms at the public tiers appear in the Claude Partner Directory with their tier label. Registered members are not listed there, so a firm that isn't in the directory may still be a member. In that case, ask for written confirmation. Individual certifications are issued as Credly badges, so ask for the badge link.

Membership is a useful signal of engagement with Anthropic's program, not a quality guarantee. Our guide on how to verify a Claude Partner Network member explains what you can and can't check publicly.

What a good proposal contains

1. A short summary of your problem in your words, so you know they listened.
2. Deliverables you can see or test: pages, a configured repository, settings files, a trained group, documentation.
3. Phases such as discovery, setup on staging, a pilot, rollout and handover, each with a review gate.
4. Access plan: what they need, when, and how it is removed at the end.
5. Review and approval steps: who checks Claude Code's changes and who approves each deploy.
6. Acceptance criteria: how you'll both know a deliverable is done, such as "build passes, no broken internal links, redirects return 301."
7. Exclusions: content writing, fact-checking, hosting, licenses, third-party tools.
8. Price and change process: a fixed fee or retainer, and how new requests are priced.
9. Tool costs: a note that Claude plans or API usage are billed by Anthropic, and whose account is used.
10. Ownership and handover: code and configuration in your repository, with documentation.

Our scope-of-work template turns this list into a table you can send to any vendor, and our guide to Claude Code consultant costs explains how to compare the prices that come back.

How to run a small paid trial

If you're unsure between two partners, pay each for a small, real, low-risk job before signing a larger contract. Good trial jobs:

• Fix a known set of broken internal links on a staging copy.
• Add or correct structured data on one page template.
• Write a CLAUDE.md and permission settings for your repository, with an explanation.

Judge the trial on the process as much as the result. Did they work on a branch? Did you get a readable summary of what changed? Did they flag anything they weren't sure about? How a partner handles a mistake on a trial tells you a lot; our list of common Claude Code website mistakes shows what to look for.

When you don't need a partner yet

If you have a small site that rarely changes, a technical person on staff, or a single well-defined task, you may not need outside help. Start with Anthropic's free courses, try Claude Code on a copy of your site in git, and hire when the work touches your live site, sensitive data or a whole team. Choosing a developer for software products follows similar principles; our earlier guide on choosing the right AI developer for a SaaS project covers that angle.

Conclusion

The right Claude Code partner is the one whose process you can see: git, staging, a person reviewing every change, scoped access and honest limits. Ask the 15 questions, watch for guarantees and shortcuts, and judge proposals on deliverables and review gates rather than speed claims. eSEOspace, a member of the Claude Partner Network, offers Claude Code development for builds and migrations and Claude Code consulting for team rollouts; ask us the same questions you'd ask anyone. More guides are in our Claude Code Guide.

Frequently asked questions