Understanding the Interface: Everything You See

Now that you have run your first prompt, let us go back and properly understand what you are looking at.

Knowing your interface is not optional. When something goes wrong, and at some point something will, knowing where to look is the difference between fixing it in 30 seconds and being stuck for an hour.

The Desktop App interface

When you open Claude Code in the Desktop App with a project folder open, you will see four main areas.

The Sidebar on the left panel shows your project files. Every file that exists in your project folder appears here. When Claude creates a new file it appears in this sidebar. You can click a file to preview it and see your full folder structure at a glance. If your sidebar is empty it means Claude has not created any files yet, or you have not opened a project folder.

The Conversation Window in the centre is where you type your prompts and where Claude responds. Everything Claude says, every action it takes, every file it creates shows up here as a running conversation. Claude shows you what it is about to do before it does it. After each action you see a summary of what happened. If Claude runs into an error it tells you here and usually tries to fix it automatically.

The Action Feed appears as Claude works. You will see a live list of actions such as "Reading file: index.html", "Writing to: style.css", or "Running command: open index.html". This is Claude working in real time. You can watch exactly what it is doing as it happens.

The Input Box at the bottom is where you type. Press Enter to send a short prompt. Press Shift and Enter together to add a new line without sending, which is useful for longer prompts. You can paste text, file paths, or error messages directly into this box.

Key controls you need to know

In the Desktop App:

• To send a prompt, press Enter.
• To stop Claude mid-task, click the Stop button.
• To clear the conversation, go to Menu and click Clear or New Chat.
• To start a new session, click the New Chat button.
• To see available commands, open the Settings menu.

In the Terminal:

• To send a prompt, press Enter after the cursor.
• To stop Claude mid-task, press Ctrl and C together.
• To clear the conversation, type /clear and press Enter.
• To start fresh, type /clear or close and reopen the terminal.
• To see available commands, type /help and press Enter.

The terminal interface (if you are using it)

The terminal interface has the same power as the Desktop App with no visual panels. Here is how it maps:

• Your prompt: type after the cursor symbol and press Enter.
• Claude's response: appears as text directly below your prompt.
• Approval prompt: Claude shows what it wants to do and asks you to confirm with Y or N.
• File changes: described in text but also happening live inside your project folder on your computer.

Useful terminal commands:

• /help shows all available commands.
• /clear clears the conversation and starts fresh.
• /memory shows what Claude knows about your current project.
• Ctrl and C immediately stops whatever Claude is doing.

The one thing most beginners miss

When Claude is working on something and you see it taking multiple actions in a row, let it finish.

New users often get nervous when they see Claude running a chain of actions and press Stop too early. Claude is usually doing exactly what you asked. The whole sequence of actions is part of completing your one request.

Only press Stop if you see something clearly going wrong or if you want to change direction entirely.

Your action right now

Open Claude Code right now and identify these four things:

1. Where your project files appear
2. Where you type your prompt
3. Where Claude's responses appear
4. How to stop Claude if you need to

If you can find all four, you know the interface. Move to the next lesson.