After running 5 workshops for non-techies and "forcing" them to use Terminal / PowerShell, I have a...
1. Trying to use the mouse.
- Trying to use the mouse.
Terminal is keyboard-only: arrow keys to move, Enter to confirm. (Recent Claude Code updates added mouse support.)
- Misreading the colours.
See the screenshot. Some thought the bright white line was the selected option. The selected one is the highlighted line marked with the arrow.
- Not knowing how to toggle a checkbox.
It is usually the space bar, not Enter.
- Typing a password on macOS and thinking something broke when seeing no response.
The screen stays blank as you type. It is a security feature, not a freeze. Keep typing and press Enter.
- Not knowing that commands are case sensitive.
“Claude” is not the same as “claude”.
- Missing a space or one of the double dashes.
Typed “claude—version” or “claude -version”. One character off and the command fails.
- Expecting every command to give a response.
Some commands do the work without printing anything, like echoing to a file. No output usually means it worked.
Once you understand these, you will be able to use Terminal more effectively.
Why learn Terminal now?
Claude Code or any AI agent on Terminal is one of the most powerful AI agents you can run. And the barrier of entry is a lot lower now. You no longer need to know the various commands, because Claude Code can run most of them for you. You just need to know the command to launch Claude Code or Codex. The rest of the experience is still chatting.
If you are a non-techie who wants to learn to use Claude Code in the Terminal, I run a Foundations of Claude Code workshop.
Details: https://lnkd.in/e9r8kScw
If you are already familiar with Claude Code in the Terminal, I run an Advanced Claude Code workshop to deep dive into context engineering, skills and workflow patterns to run big and long-running tasks (a.k.a. Loop Engineering).
Details: https://lnkd.in/eR6WPQnC
#AI #ClaudeCode #VibeCoding #AIAgents #BuildInPublic
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