Learn the Terminal Before You Run Claude Code

Before you can use Claude Code, you need a way to talk to your computer via text. This tool is called the terminal (or command line).

• On macOS: Press Cmd + Space, type Terminal, and press Enter.
• On Windows: Press the Windows Key, type PowerShell, and press Enter.
• On Linux: Press Ctrl + Alt + T.

You should see a window with a blinking cursor. This is your command prompt.

The terminal always works inside a specific folder on your computer, called the current working directory.

To find out where you are, type this command and press Enter:

pwd

This stands for Print Working Directory. It will print the full path of your current folder (e.g., /Users/username or C:\Users\username).

To see the list of files and folders inside your current folder, type:

ls

(Note: If you are on Windows PowerShell, you can use ls or dir interchangeably).

This prints all visible items in the current folder.

To move into another folder, use cd (Change Directory) followed by the folder name:

cd Desktop

Now, let's create a new folder specifically for our workshop experiments using mkdir (Make Directory):

mkdir agent-playground

Then, move into that new folder:

cd agent-playground