Find your Terminal

⏱ 10 min5 steps

is an app that comes with every MacWindows. You type into it instead of clicking. It looks plain, and that's fine. Nothing you do in this lesson can break anything. Getting stuck is normal.

If you ever typed at a C:\> prompt in DOS, you've done this before. When I started with , I hadn't touched a line since DOS in the 90s. It felt foreign at first, and it gets familiar the more you type.

Terminal An app on your Mac where you type instructions instead of clicking on things. Claude Code works inside it. All wordsClaude Code Claude, working inside Terminal. It can make files and run things on your Mac, with a safety checker watching what it does. All wordscommand An instruction you type into Terminal. Your Mac does it when you press Enter. All words

Before this, you'll want:

Terminal versus the app

Steps

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Open the search box
1. Press Cmd+Spacethe Windows key. That means: hold down the Cmd key, then tap the space bar.The Start menu opens.
You should see:
A search box in the middle of your screen, waiting for you to type.The Start menu, with a search box waiting for you to type.
That's not what I see
Nothing popped up when I pressed Cmd+Spacethe Windows key.
Hold down the Cmd key (it sits right next to the space bar and has a ⌘ on it). Keep holding it, tap the space bar once, then let go of both.Press the Windows key once and let go. It's on the bottom row, between Ctrl and Alt, with the Windows logo on it. Or click the Start button on the taskbar.
Type Terminal and press Enter
1. Type Terminal.
2. Press Enter. On some Macs this key says "return".
The line where you type is called the prompt. It means "I'm ready, tell me what to do."
You should see:
A window opens with some text and a blinking line. That's Terminal, waiting for you. The text before the blinking line ends with a %> sign.
That's not what I see
A different app opened.
Close it, press Cmd+Spacethe Windows key again and type the whole word Terminal. Wait until the top result says Terminal, then press Enter.
Nothing called Terminal comes up.
On a Mac, check the spelling and give the results a second to show. On older versions of Windows, type PowerShell instead and press Enter. Its window looks plainer, and the line you type on still starts with PS and ends with a > sign.
Type your first command
A command is an instruction you type. Your MacYour PC does it the moment you press Enter, and not a second before.
1. Click once anywhere in the Terminal window.
2. Type this:
  date
3. Press Enter.
You should see:
Terminal prints today's date and time, something like Tue Oct 20 06:31:52 EDT 2026Tuesday, October 20, 2026 6:31:52 AM. Then it shows a fresh prompt underneath. That's the whole rhythm of Terminal: you type, you press Enter, it answers, it waits again.
That's not what I see
It says "zsh: command not found: datThe term 'dat' is not recognized" or something like it.
A letter went missing or got swapped. Terminal is as picky as a cheat code: one wrong button and nothing happens. Type date again, all four letters, and press Enter.
I typed date and nothing happened.
Terminal waits until you press Enter. Press it now.
I clicked in the middle of the text and now I can't type there.
Terminal only types at the very bottom, after the %> sign, wherever you click. Press the right arrow key a few times to get to the end of the line, then carry on.
Paste a command instead of typing it
Most of the time you won't type commands letter by letter. You'll copy them from a page like this one and paste them in, which saves you from typos. means putting whatever you last copied right where you're typing.

This one makes your Mac say a sentence out loud, so turn your sound upprints a sentence back to you.
1. Click the Copy button below.
```
say "Home before the streetlights."
```
```
echo "Home before the streetlights."
```
1. Click once in the Terminal window.
2. Press Cmd+VCtrl+V. You can also right-click in the window.
3. Press Enter.
Pasting puts the words in, but it never presses Enter for you. You always get a moment to look before anything happens.
pasting Putting whatever you last copied right where you're typing. On a Mac, that's Cmd+V. All words
You should see:
Your Mac says "Home before the streetlights." out loud.The words Home before the streetlights. show up on the next line. Then a fresh prompt comes back.
That's not what I see
I pasted it but nothing happened.
Pasting puts the words in. It doesn't press Enter for you. Press Enter now.
My Mac didn't say anything.
Check that your sound is on and turned up. Then press the up arrow key once. Terminal brings back the last command you ran, so you don't have to paste it again. Press Enter.
It pasted something else, something I copied earlier.
The Copy button didn't get it. Click Copy under this step again, then click in the Terminal window and press Cmd+VCtrl+V.
Start something that won't stop, then stop it
Some commands keep going until you tell them to stop. This one checks in with Apple's website every second, over and over, so you can practice stopping it. The -t keeps it going. Without it, Windows stops by itself after four lines.
1. Copy the command below, paste it into Terminal with Cmd+VCtrl+V, and press Enter.
```
ping apple.com
```
```
ping -t apple.com
```
1. Watch a new line show up every second. It won't stop on its own.
2. Hold down Ctrl and tap C. Ctrl is the key that says control, next to fn in the bottom-left cornerCtrl, in the bottom-left corner.
Ctrl+C is your stop button for anything running in Terminal, Claude Code included. Cmd+C is still copyCtrl+Shift+C copies. Ctrl+C is stop.
You should see:
The lines stop. Terminal prints a short summary with the word packets in it, and the prompt comes back.
That's not what I see
Ctrl+C didn't stop it.
Make sure you're holding Ctrl, the key that says control, next to fn in the bottom-left cornerCtrl, in the bottom-left corner. Cmd+C is copyCtrl+Shift+C is copy, and it won't stop anything. Hold Ctrl, tap C, let go of both. If some of the text is highlighted, Ctrl+C copies it instead. Click once in the window to clear the highlight, then try again.
It says "cannot resolve apple.com: Unknown hostPing request could not find host apple.com".
Terminal couldn't reach the internet. Check your Wi-Fi, then try again. It's the modern version of mom picking up the phone in the middle of a download.
I closed the whole window by mistake.
You survived lawn darts. A closed window is nothing. Press Cmd+Spacethe Windows key, type Terminal and press Enter to get a fresh one. Nothing was lost.

Your challenge

Open Terminal three times today, once without looking at these steps. Each time, type date and press Enter, then close the window.

Last checked 2026-10-17

Set up Claude Code › 1. Get it running