The terminal is where you instruct the computer with text. Open Terminal on macOS, or Windows Terminal on Windows.
It is just a dark window full of text. I tense up a little.
You need very few commands at first. Start with these five.
pwd
ls
cd projects
mkdir hello
cd helloWhat is each line doing?
pwd prints where you are, ls lists what is there, cd moves you somewhere else, and mkdir creates a new directory.
Is a directory the same thing as a folder?
For everyday work, treat them as the same. What matters in the terminal is staying aware of which directory you are currently in.
There are shorthands for moving around.
cd ..
cd ~/projects
cd -.. is one level up, ~ is your home directory, and - is wherever you were before.
Do I have to memorize a lot of commands?
Learning the shape beats memorizing. Almost every command is three parts: the command, its options, and its target.
ls -a ~/projectsls is the command, -a is an option that changes its behavior, and ~/projects is the target. Read anything new in that shape and you can at least follow its structure.
I make a lot of typos, and long paths are tiring to type.
Press Tab partway through and the shell completes it for you. The up and down arrows bring back commands you already ran. You are not meant to type all of it by hand.
One warning. Deletion commands like rm do not go through a trash can — the files are simply gone. There is no rush to use them until you can explain what they do and what they target.
And if I get lost, pwd and ls will tell me where I am.
Good habit. Check where you are, then act. Once that is second nature the terminal stops being scary. Next, let's get Node.js ready.
