Exploring Files & Directories

2 minutes

What You’ll Learn

In Module 1, you learned to move around the filesystem. Now it’s time to actually look at what’s there — and start building your own project structure.

By the end of this module, you’ll be able to:

  • List files in detail with ls -la and read every column of the output
  • Read file contents using cat, head, and tail
  • Create directories and files with mkdir, touch, and mkdir -p
  • Find help for any command using man and --help

These are the commands your AI coding tools use constantly. When Claude Code runs ls -la to inspect your project, or cat package.json to read your config, you’ll know exactly what’s happening.

Try It Now

Type ls -la in the terminal and press Enter.

You’ll see a lot more detail than plain ls — permissions, file sizes, dates, and even hidden files. Don’t worry if it looks dense right now. By the end of this module, you’ll be able to read every piece of it.

Ready? Let’s dig in.

BlueBox Terminal