The terminal is just a chat box.
You type a command, press Enter, and it answers. Five commands cover almost everything you'll need to start.
Five Commands
pwd
Where am I right now?
ls
What's in this folder? (dir on Windows CMD)
cd my-project
Move into a folder. cd .. goes back up.
mkdir my-project
Make a new folder.
claude
Start Claude Code in this folder.
Not a terminal person?
Claude Code also runs inside VS Code and the Claude desktop app.
Same agent, friendlier window.
You'll still meet the terminal, so learn these five anyway.
Source: Anthropic Claude Code Docs ↗
Five commands get you most of the way. Learn those first.