Folders, and where your project lives

⏱ 15 min8 steps

Here's the part nobody tells you. works in whatever is in when you start it. If you're in the wrong folder, Claude is working in the wrong place, and it won't always be obvious. So before you ever type claude, you'll know how to get where you mean to be and how to check you got there.

A pretend Terminal under this lesson lets you try each step first. Getting stuck is normal, and every step has help.

Claude Code Claude, working inside Terminal. It can make files and run things on your Mac, with a safety checker watching what it does. All wordsfolder A place on your computer that holds files and other folders, like a drawer in a filing cabinet. All wordsTerminal An app on your Mac where you type instructions instead of clicking on things. Claude Code works inside it. All words

Before this, you'll want:

Find your Terminal

Practice Terminal

This one is pretend. Nothing you type here reaches your computer, so try anything. Start with ls, then mkdir ~/Backyard, cd Backyard and pwd. Press Tab to finish a folder name.

No Tab key on your phone? Use the Tab button. The up arrow brings back what you typed before, and Ctrl+C clears the line, the same as in real Terminal.

Steps

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Look around your home folder
A folder is a place on your computer that holds files and other folders, like a drawer in a filing cabinet. You've used them for years by clicking. Terminal shows the same folders, in words instead of pictures.

When Terminal opens, you start in your . Look at the , the line that ends with %>. Right before it you'll see ~C:\Users\yourname. That's a squiggle called a tilde, the short name forthe address of your home folder.

ls (a small L, then S) is short for "list". It lists what's in the folder you're in.
1. Click in the Terminal window.
2. Type this and press Enter:
  ls
home folder Your own folder on the Mac, named after you. Desktop, Documents and Downloads all live inside it. All wordsprompt line The line in Terminal that ends with a % sign. The word right before the % is the folder you're in. All words
You should see:
Terminal lists what's in your home folder: Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures and a few more., in a table with dates next to them. They're the same folders you click through every day.
That's not what I see
It says "zsh: command not found: IsThe term 'Is' is not recognized".
That first letter is a small L, not a capital i. They look alike in a lot of fonts. Type again with the L key and press Enter.ls The command that lists everything in the folder Terminal is in. All words
I see more folders than you described, or different ones.
That's fine. Some apps add their own folders here. What matters is that Desktop, Documents and Downloads are in the list. That tells you you're home.
Make your Backyard
Every project you build in this course lives in one folder called . It sits right inside your home folder, the folder on your Macyour PC that's named after you. The backyard is where the forts, the lemonade stand and the bike happened. Same idea: it's where you build.

mkdir means "make a directory", and a directory is the same thing as a folder. The ~ means your home folder, so the whole means "make a folder called Backyard, inside my home folder." On Windows it uses a backslash instead of a slash.
1. Copy the command below.
```
mkdir ~/Backyard
```
```
mkdir ~\Backyard
```
1. Paste it into Terminal with Cmd+VCtrl+V and press Enter.
2. Type this and press Enter to check:
  ls
Backyard The folder right inside your home folder where everything you build in these lessons lives. All wordscommand An instruction you type into Terminal. Your Mac does it when you press Enter. All words
You should see:
Nothing at first, and that's good. When this works, nothing comes back. No news is good news.A short table with a Name column. After you type ls, Backyard is in the list.
That's not what I see
It says "mkdir: /Users/…/Backyard: File existsAn item with the specified name … already exists".
You already have one, maybe from trying this earlier. Nothing was changed or lost. Carry on to the next step.
I can't find the ~ key.
It's in the top-left corner of the keyboard, next to the 1. Hold Shift and press that key. Or use the Copy button under this step and paste instead.
I want to see it in Finder, the way I'm used to.
In , press Shift+Cmd+H. That opens your home folder, and Backyard is in there. If you'd like it in the Finder sidebar too, drag Backyard into the sidebar on the left and let go.Finder The Mac app for looking through your files and folders. Its icon is a blue smiling face. All words
Go into your Backyard
One folder for everything means the trip is always the same: go to your Backyard, then into the project. You never have to remember a long trail of folders.

cd means "change directory": go into a folder. This time you'll type it, with a shortcut that saves you from typos.
1. Type this, but don't press Enter yet:
  cd Ba
2. Press the Tab key (it's on the left, above Caps Lock). Terminal finishes the word for you: Backyard. On Windows, a dot and two backslashes show up around the name. That's fine.
3. Press Enter.
Tab only finishes names that really exist. If you press Tab and nothing happens, that's a clue the name is wrong, before you even press Enter.

Get in the habit of glancing at the prompt line before you type anything, the way you'd glance at the gas gauge.
You should see:
Look at the prompt line. Right before the %>, it now says Backyard. That word is always the folder you're in.
That's not what I see
It says "cd: no such file or directory: BackyrdCannot find path … because it does not exist" or something like it.
The folder name was spelled a little differently from the real one. Nothing happened, and you're still where you were. Type , a space, Ba, then press Tab and let Terminal finish the name for you.cd The command that moves Terminal into a folder. Type cd, a space and the folder's name. It's short for change directory, an old word for folder. All words
I pressed Tab and nothing happened.
Tab is picky about capital letters. It finishes Ba intoOn Windows, Tab doesn't mind capital letters. It finishes Ba into Backyard, but not ba. Delete back to the space, type Ba with a capital B, and press Tab again., and ba too. Check the other letters you typed, then press Tab again.
The prompt line still doesn't say Backyard.
Press Enter if you haven't yet. Moving only happens when you press it. Then look at the word right before the %> sign. That's always where you are.
Typing the folder name keeps going wrong.
There's a way that needs no typing at all. Type cd and a space, but don't press Enter yet. Open Finder (on Windows, Explorer), find the folder you want, and drag it onto the Terminal window. Let go. Your MacYour PC types the whole address for you. Now press Enter.file One document on your computer, like a letter or a photo. Files live inside folders. All words
Ask where you are
The prompt line shows only the last namecan get long and hard to read. When you want the whole address, ask. pwd means "print working directory", which is a long way of saying "where am I?"
1. Type this and press Enter:
  pwd
Read the address right to left: Backyard, inside your home folder, inside Users.
You should see:
Terminal prints the whole address, like /Users/yourname/BackyardC:\Users\yourname\Backyard, under the word Path.
That's not what I see
pwd printed a folder I didn't expect.
You're somewhere else, and that's fixable from anywhere. Type cd ~/Backyard and press Enter. Then type again to check.pwd The command that tells you which folder Terminal is in right now. It's short for print working directory. All words
See the folder in a window
This command opens the folder you're in, the way you're used to seeing it. The dot means "right here."
1. Type this (open, a space, then a period) and press Enter:
  open .
  explorer .
If you're ever not sure where Terminal is, pwd tells you in words and this command shows you in a window.
You should see:
A window opens, showing the folder you're in.
That's not what I see
open .explorer . did nothing.
It needs the space and the dot: openexplorer, a space, then a period. Type it again and press Enter.
Go up one folder and come back
Two dots mean "one folder up." Your Backyard is inside your home folder, so one folder up is home.
1. Type this (cd, a space, then two periods) and press Enter:
  cd ..
2. Type this and press Enter to go back:
  cd Backyard
You should see:
After the first command, the prompt line shows ~C:\Users\yourname again: you're home. After the second, it says Backyard again.
That's not what I see
I made a folder with a space in its name, and cd can't find it.
Terminal reads a space as the end of the name. Put the name in quotes, like cd "My Stuff", or type the start of the name and press Tab so Terminal writes it the way it needs. Next time, use names with no spaces, like MyStuff or my-stuff.
Go home from anywhere, then straight to your Backyard
There's a command that always takes you home, from anywhere. It's your way back when you're lost.
1. Type this and press Enter:
  cd
  cd ~
2. Type this and press Enter. It takes you straight to your Backyard, from home or anywhere else:
  cd ~/Backyard
  cd ~\Backyard
You should see:
After the first command, the prompt line shows your home folder. After the second, it says Backyard.
That's not what I see
I'm lost and I don't know where I am anymore.
You survived "go outside and don't come back till dinner" with no map and no phone. This is easier. Type cd ~ and press Enter. That always takes you home, no matter where you were. Then type cd Backyard and press Enter.
Make sure iCloud isn't syncing your Documents
It's tempting to put projects in Documents. Please don't. Newer Macs offer to keep your Desktop and Documents in , Apple's online storage, and plenty of people said yes without knowing what it meant. iCloud keeps copying files back and forth, and it can swap a file on your Mac for a copy that only lives online. A project is a lot of small files changing all the time, and the two get in each other's way.

I learned this the hard way. In July 2026, iCloud was syncing my Documents folder, and one of my projects got corrupted. Commands froze, part of the project's history was damaged, and three files never came back. I moved my projects out of Documents and turned that setting off. Your Backyard sits outside Documents and Desktop, so iCloud leaves it alone.

On Windows, OneDrive can sync your Documents and Desktop, so keep your Backyard right inside your home folder, where ~\Backyard puts it. There's nothing to check, so you can skip the steps below.

To check your Mac:
1. Click the Apple menu (the apple, top left of your screen), then System Settings.
2. Click your name at the top of the list on the left, then iCloud.
3. Click Drive (on some Macs it says iCloud Drive).
4. Look for Desktop & Documents Folders. If it's on, your Desktop and Documents are being synced. Your Backyard is safe either way. Turning the setting off is up to you; read the snags for this step first, because turning it off moves things around.
Later in the course you'll your projects the right way, with . That's a backup made for projects, and it never fights with your files.
iCloud Apple's online storage. It can copy folders from your Mac to the internet and keep them in sync. All wordsback up Keep a copy of something before it changes, so you can go back if the change goes wrong. All wordsGitHub A website that keeps a copy of your git project, with every version saved. Your backup, and where changes get reviewed. All words
That's not what I see
I can't find Desktop & Documents Folders.
The names move around a little between versions of macOS. In System Settings, click in the search box at the top left and type Desktop & Documents. If nothing shows up, iCloud Drive may be off altogether, and that's fine for this lesson.
My projects are already in Documents.
Move them into your Backyard one at a time. Open two Finder windows. In the first, find your . In the second, press Shift+Cmd+H to open your home folder, then open Backyard. Drag the project folder from the first window into the second. If iCloud was syncing, some files may show a small cloud icon, meaning they live only in iCloud right now. Before you move a folder, right-click it and choose Download Now, then wait for the cloud icons to go away.project folder One folder in your Backyard that holds everything for one thing you're building. All words
I turned the setting off and my Desktop and Documents look empty.
Don't panic. Nothing was deleted. When you turn it off, your Mac leaves the files in iCloud Drive and starts you with empty folders. Open Finder, click iCloud Drive in the sidebar, and drag what you need back into your Documents or Desktop.

Your challenge

Three times today: open Terminal, go to your Backyard, check the prompt line says Backyard, then type cd ~ and press Enter to go home. Do the last one without looking at these steps.

Last checked 2026-10-17

Set up Claude Code › 1. Get it running