Where Claude Code runs

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Claude Code started out as a terminal application, but it now runs in a few different places. It's worth taking a minute to see what your options are before we install anything, because a screenshot you've seen online could have been any one of them.

The terminal

This is the original way to run Claude Code, and it's still the most common one. You install a command line tool, change into a project directory, type claude, and start working. There's no editor involved and no graphical interface at all, which is exactly why it behaves the same way on every machine you sit down at.

This is what we'll be using for the rest of the course.

The desktop app

Claude Code also runs inside the Claude desktop app. Just click the Code tab within the app. Then, you point it at a folder on your machine and get a window instead of a terminal session. It's the same agent underneath, just with a different interface wrapped around it, and it's generally a nice fit if you want to kick off a longer task and check back on it later.

But I generally prefer the terminal instead as it feels much more powerful and capable to me than the GUI.

The web

You can also run Claude Code from a browser, and this works just like the desktop app. Click the Code tab to get started. But here sessions run remotely against a repository you've connected, rather than against the files on your laptop. This may help you when you want to kick something off quickly from a mobile device or from within another environment.

Your code editor

There are official extensions for VS Code and for the JetBrains IDEs, which covers PhpStorm, WebStorm, IntelliJ, PyCharm and the rest of that family. The extension puts Claude Code in a panel right next to your code, and it can see the file you have open, the lines you've selected, and the errors your IDE is already showing you. Changes come back as diffs inside the editor instead of scrolling past you in a terminal.

If you already spend your entire day inside an IDE, this is good and comfortable place to start before you fully transition to the CLI.

Which one should you use

Any of them, really -- it's the same agent doing the same work underneath.

But I teach the terminal version in this course because it's the lowest common denominator, and the most powerful, in my opinion. It runs everywhere, it doesn't care about an editor, and new features generally show up there first.

Let's get it installed.