What Is the Terminal (And How to Open It)

Milestone 1: What the Terminal Is

The terminal is a window where you type commands and your computer runs them.

Instead of clicking icons, you type text. The computer reads it and does something: opens a file, runs a program, moves folders. Claude Code lives here — you type instructions to Claude, and Claude types back.

You don't need to know how to code to use the terminal. You just need to know how to open it and type.

Milestone 2: Open the Terminal on Mac

Step 1: Press Cmd + Space to open Spotlight.

Step 2: Type Terminal and press Enter.

A window appears with a blinking cursor and text like this:

Last login: Mon Mar  2 10:00:00
username@MacBook ~ %

That line ending with % or $ is the prompt. It means the terminal is ready for your next command.

Try it: Type this and press Enter:

echo hello

The terminal prints hello. That's it — you just ran your first command.

Milestone 3: Open the Terminal on Windows

Step 1: Press Win + X (hold the Windows key, tap X).

Step 2: Click Windows PowerShell or Terminal from the menu that appears.

A window appears with text like this:

Windows PowerShell
PS C:\Users\YourName>

That line ending with > is the prompt. The terminal is ready.

Try it: Type this and press Enter:

echo hello

The terminal prints hello.

Note: You might see Command Prompt listed too. Use PowerShell instead — it's newer and Claude Code works better with it.

Milestone 4: A Few Things to Know

You can't click. Use the arrow keys to move around. Up arrow recalls your last command.

Ctrl+C cancels anything that's running. If something looks stuck, press Ctrl+C.

clear clears the screen. Type clear and press Enter to clean up the display. Everything is still there — just scrolled up.

Paths use slashes. On Mac/Linux, folders are separated by / like /Users/yuval/projects. On Windows, by \ like C:\Users\yuval\projects.

What You Built

Your terminal is open and running commands. That's the only technical requirement for everything that follows on this platform.

Next: Install Claude Code — one command, five minutes.