How to Install Claude Code, for Designers
Installing Claude Code takes one copy-paste. Really. Everything you're afraid of about the terminal fits inside a single Cmd+V. The whole thing takes about five minutes, and most of that is your browser opening.
If the terminal itself still feels like a stranger, start with Terminal 101, for Designers and come back. The short version: the terminal is a conversation (you type, it answers, it waits for your next move), and you're always standing inside a folder. Where you stand is what Claude sees. That's genuinely all the theory you need.
Now, the actual install.
First, open the Terminal. Press Cmd+Space, type "terminal", hit return.
What you'll see is an empty window with a short line of text and a blinking cursor. That's it. It can't do anything until you type, and you can't break something by looking at it. That cursor has been blinking the exact same way for about fifty years, which goes to show that some things don't need a redesign.
Now, the copy-paste. Copy this, paste it into that window, and hit return:
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash
In human terms, this line says: "Go to claude.ai, pick up the installer, and run it." That's all. No Homebrew, no Node, none of the developer machinery you may have heard muttered about (if those words mean nothing to you, even better; they're not invited).
Text will scroll by for a bit. Let it. When the blinking cursor comes back, it's done. You just installed a command line tool. You did it!
Next, give your projects a home. Before you launch anything, one bit of housekeeping that future you will thank you for. Everything you build with Claude lives in a folder somewhere, and you don't want that to become a scatter of mystery folders all over your Mac. So make one folder where all your Claude work will live, with one folder per project inside it. Paste these in one at a time, hitting return after each:
mkdir -p ~/claude-projects/first-project
cd ~/claude-projects/first-project
Two new words, but you can already read them. mkdir means make directory: it creates a claude-projects folder with a first-project folder inside it, in one go (the ~ is shorthand for your home folder). And cd you already know. You just walked in. A tip while we're here: keep folder names lowercase, with hyphens instead of spaces. The terminal takes spaces personally.
Don't believe these are the same folders Finder sees? Type open . (open, space, period) and the folder you're standing in pops open in Finder. Same place, two views.
Btw, you could create the folders in Finder and then just point the Terminal to them via cd. Both work, it's whatever is most comfortable for you.
From here on, that's the ritual: new project, new folder inside claude-projects, walk in, then start Claude. Where you stand is what it sees.
Then, say the magic word. Type this and hit return:
claude
Your browser will pop open and ask you to log in with your Claude account. You'll need a Pro or Max plan for this part; the free plan doesn't include Claude Code. Log in, come back to the terminal, and there it is: a welcome screen, in the black window, with your name on it.
(If instead you get command not found, don't panic. Quit Terminal and open it again; it doesn't know a new tool exists until it restarts. A fresh window also forgets where you were standing, so cd back into your folder and type claude again. Computers gonna computer.)
Before you type anything else, notice what just happened. The window looks the same, same black rectangle, same blinking cursor, but Claude has taken over. You're not talking to the terminal anymore; you're talking to Claude, inside the terminal. Which means the terminal's pedantic rules no longer apply. Natural language works now, and typos are forgiven. You can ask what a command means before you run it, or tell it to go look at a folder somewhere else entirely, no cd required. The terminal, that old school LLM, just got its natural language upgrade.
Finally, ask it for something. Anything. You're standing in your first project folder with Claude running inside it, so try this: "Create a page called hello.html with my name on it in ridiculously big type, then open it in my browser."
Watch what happens. It won't just do it; it'll ask permission first. Approve it. And a few seconds later your browser opens: a page, with your name on it, that exists because you described it. It's sitting in first-project right now, exactly where you were standing.
That page is the ah ha moment, by the way. The first time the machine makes a thing because you said the thing. In last week's post I called this drawing with words, and I spent two thousand words on what it means for our discipline. But reading about it is like reading about swimming. This is me pushing you into the pool.
Should you learn more terminal after this? Commands, flags, all that? Honestly, you don't have to. I'm no shell wizard myself; I still look up how to unzip certain files, true story. The beautiful twist is that the tool you just installed is also the best terminal teacher ever made. Don't know how to do something? Ask Claude, in the terminal, in plain English. The scary black window now speaks your language.
That's pretty much it! The terminal is the oldest interface on your Mac, older than the Mac itself, actually. And it now runs the most advanced tool I've ever used. Funny how that works.
The cursor's blinking… Type something.