Terminal — Start Here

What Is a Terminal?

A terminal is a screen where you give instructions to your computer using text.

Normally, you double-click folders and press buttons in apps. In the terminal, you do the same things by typing commands.

AI coding tools like Claude Code run in the terminal, so knowing a few basic commands goes a long way.

You Only Need 5 Commands

1. pwd — Where am I?

Short for “Print Working Directory.” Shows your current location.

pwd
# /Users/yourname/Documents

When you feel lost, start here.

2. ls — What’s here?

Lists the contents of your current folder.

ls
# Desktop  Documents  Downloads  my-project

3. cd — Move around

Short for “Change Directory.” Navigate between folders.

# Go into a folder
cd my-project

# Go up one level
cd ..

# Go back to your home folder
cd ~

The most important command. Before using AI tools, you need to cd into your project folder.

4. mkdir — Create a folder

# Create a new folder
mkdir my-new-project

5. clear — Clean the screen

When the screen is full of text, clear resets the view. Nothing is deleted — it just scrolls past the noise.

Common “Scary” Moments and What to Do

”Something weird appeared, did I break it?”

You probably didn’t. It’s just an error message.

cd nonexistent-folder
# bash: cd: nonexistent-folder: No such file or directory

This just means “that folder doesn’t exist.” Run ls to check what’s available, then try again with the right name.

”The command won’t stop”

Press Ctrl + C. This stops almost anything. The single most important shortcut to remember.

”I don’t know what to type”

That’s exactly what AI is for. Ask Claude Code or ChatGPT: “How do I list all image files in this folder?” and it’ll give you the command.

How It Works in Practice

The actual workflow is just this:

# 1. Go to your project folder
cd ~/Documents/my-project

# 2. Start the AI tool
claude

# 3. Give instructions in plain English

Once you can do steps 1 and 2, the AI guides you from there.

How to Open a Terminal

OS	How
Mac	Spotlight search “Terminal” / Applications > Utilities > Terminal
Windows	Start menu, search “PowerShell”
VS Code	Menu > Terminal > New Terminal (or Ctrl + `` “)

If you use VS Code, the built-in terminal is great — you can see your files and type commands in the same window.

Next Steps

Now that you know the terminal basics:

• Getting Started with AI Coding Tools — Install and try the tools
• Understanding AI Tool Permissions — What those confirmation dialogs mean