Module 1 recap

An hour ago you may never have opened a terminal. Now you have Claude Code installed, you have made it write files, you know where those files go, and you know how to undo it when it gets something wrong.

That is the whole foundation. Everything else in this course is a larger version of it.

The Module 1 cheatsheet

In your terminal:

Command	What it does
claude --version	Confirms Claude Code is installed
claude	Starts a session in the folder you are in
pwd	Tells you which folder that is
ls	Lists what is in it
cd foldername	Moves into a folder (cd .. goes back up)
mkdir name	Makes a new folder

Inside Claude:

Key or command	What it does
Esc	Interrupt Claude mid-task
Esc Esc or /rewind	Open the undo menu
Shift + Tab	Cycle permission modes
/clear	Start a fresh conversation, files untouched
/exit	Leave Claude

The mental model

Claude Code works in one folder — the one you were in when you typed claude. It cannot see the rest of your computer. That single rule is why pwd, ls and cd matter, and it is most of what confuses people early on.

Everything else is a conversation. You describe what you want, it proposes, you approve, it acts. When the result is wrong you interrupt, rewind, and tell it what you actually observed.

If you remember one thing: you are always the one who approves. Nothing reaches your files until you say yes. Reading that prompt is not a formality, it is the job.

What we skipped, deliberately

Other tutorials teach grep, pipes, chmod and $PATH on day one. Those are real skills, and none of them are needed to do useful work with Claude Code. Several do not exist on Windows, where most people taking this course are working. When you do need them, Claude can run them for you and explain what came back.

Next module: writing prompts that get you what you actually meant.