Claude Code in Action
What a real Claude Code session looks like — and how to stay in control.
What the Terminal Looks Like
When you type claude and hit enter, you get a text prompt. That’s it. No GUI, no buttons, no panels. Just you and a cursor.
You type what you want in plain English. Claude responds with what it plans to do, then does it. The whole thing happens in your terminal — colored text tells you what’s going on. When Claude reads a file, you’ll see it. When it writes a file, you’ll see the path and a summary of the changes. When it runs a command, you’ll see the command and its output.
It looks technical. It’s not. You’re having a conversation — the terminal is just where it happens.
Approving and Rejecting Changes
Here’s the part that matters most: Claude asks before it acts.
Before writing to a file, before running a command, Claude tells you what it wants to do and waits for your approval. You can say yes. You can say no. You can say “try something different.”
This is your creative control. Think of it like directing — you’re not writing the code, but you decide what gets built and how it feels. Claude proposes, you approve. If something doesn’t sit right, you push back before it ever touches your project.
You’re never locked into a change you didn’t want.
Slash Commands
Claude Code has a handful of commands that start with /. You don’t need to memorize them, but a few are worth knowing early.
/help shows you everything available. Good for when you forget what’s there.
/clear wipes the current conversation and starts fresh. Useful when you want a clean slate without closing and reopening Claude.
/compact summarizes the conversation so far and frees up context space. When you’ve been going back and forth for a while and Claude starts to feel slower or less precise, this helps it refocus without losing the thread entirely.
That’s enough to get going. The rest you’ll pick up naturally.
Conversation Context
Claude remembers everything in the current session. Every prompt, every decision, every file it looked at — it’s all in the conversation. That’s what makes iteration feel natural. You don’t have to re-explain your project every time you ask for a change.
But conversations have limits. As a session gets long, Claude may lose track of decisions you made earlier. You’ll notice the signs: you’re repeating yourself, Claude forgets something you already agreed on, or it starts going in circles.
When that happens, you have two good options. Use /compact to let Claude summarize and refocus. Or start a fresh session with claude — Claude will re-read your project files and pick up context from the code itself. Either way, it’s a normal part of the workflow, not a failure.
Pasting Screenshots
This is where your design instincts become a superpower.
You can paste screenshots directly into Claude Code. Drag an image into the terminal, or paste from your clipboard. Claude sees what you see.
That means you can show Claude a mockup and say “build this.” You can screenshot a visual bug and say “this doesn’t look right.” You can grab a reference from another app and say “match this spacing.” You can paste a Figma frame and say “the real thing doesn’t match this — fix it.”
For designers, this changes everything. Instead of describing visual problems in words — which is hard and imprecise — you show them. Claude responds to what it sees, not what you manage to articulate. Your eye for detail becomes a direct input to the build process.
A Real Workflow
Here’s what an actual session feels like. Not code — just the flow.
You open your project and start Claude. You type: “I want a button that slides in from the right when the page loads.”
Claude reads your existing files to understand the project structure. It proposes creating a CSS animation — a keyframe that moves the button from off-screen to its final position. You approve. The button slides in.
You look at it. Too fast. “The timing feels too fast. Make it more subtle — maybe ease out over half a second.”
Claude adjusts the animation duration and easing curve. You approve. Better.
But now you want more. “Actually, can it fade in too, not just slide? I want it to go from invisible to fully visible while it moves.”
Claude updates the animation to combine opacity and transform. You approve. The button fades and slides into place. It feels right.
Three prompts. Maybe two minutes. You didn’t write any code, but you directed every detail. The timing, the feel, the behavior — those were your decisions. Claude just made them real.
That’s the loop. Describe, review, refine. Your design sense drives the work. Claude handles the implementation. The result is something you built — even if you never typed a line of CSS.