Where Claude Works

There's one idea that trips up almost everyone when they start, and once it clicks, a lot of confusion disappears. It's this:

Claude only sees the folder you start it in.

That's it. But it's not obvious, and Claude itself won't always remind you. So let's make it concrete.

Claude Lives in One Folder

When you run claude, it starts working inside whatever folder your Terminal happens to be in at that moment. That folder, and everything inside it, is Claude's entire world. It can read and change files there. It cannot see or touch anything outside it.

Remember Chapter 1, when Claude asked "Is this a project you trust?" and showed you a folder path? That was Claude telling you exactly which folder it was about to work in. That question isn't a formality. It's the boundary of everything Claude can do this session.

So build the habit: before you start Claude, know where you are. pwd (print working directory, from Chapter 1) answers exactly that. Glance at it, then run claude.

A Home for Your Projects

If every project just lands wherever, things get messy fast. A tiny bit of structure fixes that. Here's the setup I use, and I'd suggest the same:

~/projects/
  my-first-app/
  client-landing-page/
  budget-tracker/

One folder called projects in your home directory. Inside it, one folder per thing you build. That's the whole system.

Make the projects folder once:

mkdir ~/projects

From now on, every new thing you build gets its own folder inside it. Starting a budget tracker? Make its folder and move into it:

mkdir ~/projects/budget-tracker && cd ~/projects/budget-tracker

Then run claude right there, and it works on just that project. Clean and contained.

Code Lives Inside the Project

Chances are you already work something like this. Most designers keep a folder per project, with the concepts, mockups, references, exports, the design files, the client brief, all of it in one place. If that's you, you don't need a separate world for code. It fits right into the structure you already have.

When I started, I assumed the opposite. I thought code belonged somewhere separate, off in its own developer corner. It doesn't. If you're building a website for a project, the website is just part of that project. So the website (or app) folder goes inside the project folder, right next to everything else:

~/projects/acme-rebrand/
  brief.md
  references/
  exports/
  acme-website/     ← the code lives here

Here's why that's worth doing. When you point Claude at the whole project folder, it can see all of it: your brief, your references, the exports, the direction you've already set. That's context it can actually use while it builds:

• "Read brief.md and build the landing page from it."
• "Match the colors in references/palette.png."
• "Use the logo in exports/logo.svg in the header."

Claude reads the design context from the project folder, and does the actual building inside the acme-website folder where the app lives. Your design work and the code sit side by side, which is exactly where they belong.

Pointing Claude at the Right Place

Because Claude works wherever you start it, you get to choose how much it sees. Two useful levels:

Inside one project. Move into a single project, then start Claude:

cd ~/projects/budget-tracker && claude

Claude sees only that project. This is what you want almost all the time. It stays focused, and there's no chance of it touching a different project by accident.

Across all your projects. Start Claude one level up, in projects itself:

cd ~/projects && claude

Now Claude can see every project at once. Handy when you want to start something brand new, copy a piece from one project into another, or ask "which of these did I build the contact form in?"

Rule of thumb: start Claude as close to the actual work as you can. One project at a time keeps Claude focused and keeps you out of trouble.

Running More Than One Claude

Here's the other thing nobody tells you: you're not limited to one Claude at a time.

Each Terminal tab or window is completely independent. It has its own location and runs on its own. So you can have several Claudes going at once, each in a different folder, each working on something different.

Open a new tab with Cmd+T (or a new window with Cmd+N). Move into a different project, start Claude:

cd ~/projects/client-landing-page && claude

Now you have two Claudes running in parallel: one polishing your landing page, one fixing your budget app. They don't know about each other, and that's fine. It's the same Claude subscription, just two separate conversations happening at the same time.

This is how people actually work once they get comfortable: a tab per project, sometimes two on the same project, all running side by side.

Recap

Three ideas, and they're the ones that make everything else feel less mysterious:

• Claude only sees the folder you start it in. That folder is its whole world.
• Keep a single projects folder, one subfolder per project, and start Claude inside the one you're working on.
• You can run as many Claudes as you like, one per Terminal tab, each in its own folder.