Further Reading: Setting Up

This chapter was about tools, so most of the reading below is reference documentation — not to be read cover to cover, but to be searched when you need a flag, an argument, or a fix. Tagged Tier 1 (confident it exists and recommended) and Tier 2 (real and worth seeking, but verify the current version or URL, because setup instructions drift faster than anything else in this field).

The primary sources

• The Qiskit documentation, "Install Qiskit" and the API reference. Authoritative, versioned, and the place to check when an example in any book — including this one — stops working. Use the version selector. The most common documentation mistake in this field is reading 0.x docs while running 1.x. Tier 1.
• The qiskit-ibm-runtime documentation. Covers QiskitRuntimeService, the primitives, sessions and batch mode, job management, and the authentication arguments that changed with the platform migration. The section on saving accounts is the definitive answer to §2.3's Version Note. Tier 1.
• The qiskit-aer documentation. Simulator methods, options, and noise models. You will return to this constantly from Chapter 11 onward. Tier 1.
• Your own IBM Quantum dashboard. Not usually thought of as documentation, but it is the authoritative source for three things nothing else can tell you: your current quota, the live queue depths, and the exact save_account snippet for your account. Check it before planning any large run. Tier 1.

Learning Qiskit specifically

• IBM Quantum Learning (the free course platform). The successor to the old Qiskit Textbook, and the best structured Qiskit-specific course material available. Its "Basics of quantum information" and "Fundamentals of quantum algorithms" units complement Chapters 3–5 and Part IV of this book respectively. Free, well-maintained, and updated for current APIs — which distinguishes it from most tutorial material. Tier 1.
• The Qiskit YouTube channel's Coding with Qiskit series. Short, current, and useful when a written explanation of an API pattern has not landed. Check the upload date. Tier 2.

When something breaks

• The Quantum Computing Stack Exchange. The best single place to search for a quantum-specific error message. Search before asking; almost every setup failure in §2.8 has been answered there several times. Tier 1.
• The Qiskit GitHub issue tracker. Search closed issues, not just open ones — a great deal of practical knowledge about version transitions lives in closed threads. When you find a genuine bug, a minimal reproducible example plus your version output is what makes a report actionable. Tier 1.
• The Qiskit Slack workspace and community forums. Active and generous with beginners. Include your version output in every question; it is the first thing anyone will ask for. Tier 2 — the invitation mechanism changes.

On Python environments

The most common obstacle in this chapter has nothing to do with quantum computing.

• The Python Packaging User Guide, "Installing packages using pip and virtual environments." The authoritative explanation of the mechanism behind Case Study 1's entire diagnosis. Twenty minutes, and it will pay for itself repeatedly across your career, not just here. Tier 1.
• The venv module documentation in the Python standard library. Short and precise on what activation actually does to your shell, which is worth understanding rather than treating as magic. Tier 1.
• uv or conda as alternatives to venv + pip. Both handle the quantum stack fine and both are faster. This book uses venv because it requires no additional install and is present everywhere; if you already have a preferred tool, use it. Tier 2 — these evolve rapidly.

On the hardware you just used

• IBM Quantum's processor documentation and system pages. Which processors exist, their topologies, their basis gates, and their current calibration data. Worth browsing now for orientation, and it is the reference for Chapter 12 and Chapter 29. Tier 2 — the fleet changes.
• Appendix G in this book, which collects the durable parts: what $T_1$, $T_2$, gate error, and readout error mean, how to read a coupling map, and how to interpret a calibration table. Start here; it will tell you what to look for on the vendor pages. Tier 1.

On superconducting qubits, if you are curious what you talked to

You do not need this to program the machine, and some people find that unsatisfying.

• P. Krantz et al., "A Quantum Engineer's Guide to Superconducting Qubits" (2019), Applied Physics Reviews 6, 021318. The standard technical introduction to how transmon qubits actually work: what a Josephson junction is, where $T_1$ and $T_2$ come from physically, and how microwave pulses implement gates. Demanding but genuinely illuminating, and it makes Chapter 31 much easier. Tier 1.
• Any vendor's public explainer on dilution refrigeration. The engineering that gets a chip to fifteen millikelvin is remarkable, entirely classical, and completely irrelevant to your code — which is itself worth knowing, because the abstraction really does hold. Tier 2.

Security, for the token

• Your version control platform's documentation on secret scanning and on removing sensitive data from history. Read the second one before you need it. The key fact, which surprises people: a committed secret is compromised the moment it is pushed, and history rewriting does not fix that — revocation does. Tier 2.

Where to go next. If one thing: bookmark the Qiskit API reference with the version selector set to your installed version, and get in the habit of checking it rather than searching the web. The web is full of pre-1.0 Qiskit, and the reference is not.

Then Chapter 3, where the gates stop being opaque.