Lesson 1.3

Navigating Around

7 minutes

Now that you can see where you are, let’s learn to move around.

ls — List Directory Contents

What it does: Shows you what’s in the current directory.

Try it now: Type ls

You’ll see the files and folders in your home directory. Folders like Documents, Downloads, and projects should appear.

cd — Change Directory

What it does: Moves you to a different directory.

Try it now: Type cd projects then ls

You’ve moved into the projects folder! Notice the prompt changed — it now shows ~/projects instead of ~.

Going Deeper

Type cd my-app and then ls. You’re now inside a real-looking project with src/, public/, tests/, and more.

Going Back Up

Type cd .. to go up one level.

The .. means “parent directory” — the folder that contains the one you’re in.

Try it: Type cd .. a few times and run pwd after each one to see where you end up.

Command	What it does
`cd ~`	Go to your home directory (`/home/user`)
`cd ..`	Go up one directory
`cd -`	Go back to the previous directory
`cd /`	Go to the root (top) of the filesystem

Try it now: Type cd ~/projects/my-app — this jumps straight to the project directory from anywhere.

Absolute vs. Relative Paths

There are two ways to describe a location:

Absolute paths start with / — they describe the full path from the root:

/home/user/projects/my-app/src/index.js

Relative paths start from where you are now:

src/index.js          (if you're in my-app/)
../my-app/src/index.js  (if you're in projects/)

The ~ shortcut always means /home/user:

~/projects    is the same as    /home/user/projects

When AI Tools Navigate
You'll often see your AI tool run commands like cd ~/projects/my-app && ls src/. Now you know: it's moving to the project folder and listing the source code. The && means "do the next command only if the first one worked."

Practice

Try navigating to these locations and back: