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By the end of this lesson you'll move around your computer entirely from the keyboard — knowing exactly where you are, what's around you, and how to walk to any folder using the three commands you'll reach for hundreds of times a day: pwd , ls , and cd .

Part of the free Cli course at LearnCodingFast — hands-on lessons with examples you run in your browser, plus practice exercises and a quick quiz.

What You'll Learn

1️⃣ pwd — Where Am I?

The terminal always has a current directory — the folder your commands act on. Unlike a file explorer, there's no window title constantly showing it, so the first command every developer learns is pwd ("print working directory"). It prints the full path to where you are right now. Run it whenever you feel lost; it never changes anything, so it's completely safe.

2️⃣ ls — What's In Here?

ls ("list") shows the contents of the current directory. On its own it gives a plain list, but its real power is in its flags — single letters after a dash that change its behaviour. The four you'll use constantly are -l (long, detailed format), -a (all, including hidden dot-files), -h (human-readable sizes like 1.2K ), and -t (sort newest-first). Flags stack , so ls -lah applies all three of the first ones at once.

🔎 Reading an ls -l Line

Each long-format line packs a lot in. From left to right: the type and permissions, link count, owner, group, size, modified date, and finally the name. Here's the same line annotated:

The very first character is the quickest tell: d means it's a directory you can cd into, - means it's a regular file, and l means it's a symbolic link (a shortcut to somewhere else).

Your turn. The program below is almost complete — fill in the three blanks marked ___ with the right flag using the hints, then run each line.

3️⃣ cd — Moving Around

cd ("change directory") walks you from one folder to another. You point it at a path, and there are two kinds. An absolute path starts with a leading / (the root) and means the same place from anywhere — like a full address. A relative path starts from wherever you already are. Three symbols make relative paths fast: . is "here", .. is "up one level", and ~ is your home directory. Bonus: cd - toggles back to the directory you were last in.

Pro Tip: cd - is Alt-Tab for the Terminal

cd - jumps you straight back to the previous directory and prints its path. It's perfect when you're bouncing between two folders — say a project and its log directory deep elsewhere. And don't forget Tab completion : type the first few letters of a folder name and press Tab, and the shell fills in the rest (and escapes any awkward characters for you).

Now you try. You're standing in /home/user/projects/webapp/src . Fill in each blank to make the move described, then confirm with pwd .

4️⃣ The Filesystem Tree

Every path you've typed is a route through one big structure: the filesystem tree . It starts at a single root, written / , and branches into directories, which branch into more directories and files. A path like /home/user/notes.txt simply spells out the branches you follow from the root. The tree command draws this picture for you, and -L 2 keeps it readable by stopping at two levels deep. (If tree isn't installed, add it with sudo apt install tree on Linux or brew install tree on macOS.)

Common Errors (and the fix)

• "No such file or directory" — relative vs absolute confusion. You ran cd projects/webapp but you weren't in /home/user , so the relative path pointed nowhere. Run pwd to see where you actually are, then either move there first or use the full absolute path cd /home/user/projects/webapp .
• "No such file or directory" — a space in the path. cd My Project looks like two separate arguments to the shell. Quote the name — cd "My Project" — or escape the space with a backslash: cd My\ Project . Pressing Tab to autocomplete does this for you.
• "Not a directory" — you tried to cd into a file. You can only cd into folders. cd notes.txt fails because notes.txt is a file. Run ls -l first and look for a d at the start of the line to confirm it's a directory.
• "command not found: tree". The tree command isn't installed by default everywhere. Install it with sudo apt install tree (Debian/Ubuntu), sudo dnf install tree (Fedora), or brew install tree (macOS).

📋 Quick Reference

Command

What it does

pwd

Print the current directory's full path

ls -l

Long listing: permissions, size, date, name

ls -a

Include hidden files (dot-files)

ls -lh

Long listing with human-readable sizes

ls -lt

Long listing, newest files first

cd dir

Enter a subdirectory (relative path)

cd /abs/path

Go to an absolute path (works anywhere)

cd ..

Go up one level to the parent

cd ~

Go to your home directory

cd -

Toggle back to the previous directory

tree -L 2

Draw the directory tree, 2 levels deep

Frequently Asked Questions

Mini-Challenge: Find Your Way Around

No blanks this time — just a brief and an outline to keep you on track. Work through the five steps using only pwd , ls , and cd , then check your terminal against the expected output.

🎉 Lesson Complete!

• ✅ pwd always tells you which directory you're standing in
• ✅ ls lists files; flags -l -a -h -t stack to control the view
• ✅ cd moves you; absolute paths start with / , relative paths start from here
• ✅ . = here, .. = up one level, ~ = home, cd - = toggle back
• ✅ The filesystem is one tree rooted at / , and tree draws it
• ✅ Next lesson: File Management — create, copy, move, and delete files from the command line

Practice quiz

Continue this course

• Previous: Introduction to the Command Line
• Next: File Management Commands