pwd: where am I. ls: what's here.

Two commands. They're the ones you'll run most, because they answer the two questions you'll ask most: where am I, and what's around me.

pwd

pwd stands for "print working directory." Working directory is the same thing we called your current directory: the folder you're standing in. Type it and press enter:

pwd

It prints the full path from the top of the tree down to where you are:

/Users/maya/Documents

Read that right to left: you're in Documents, which is inside maya, which is inside Users. The leading / is the very top of the whole tree. pwd never changes anything. It just answers "where am I." Run it any time you feel lost. You will feel lost sometimes, and pwd is the cure.

ls

ls stands for "list." It shows what's inside the folder you're standing in. Type it and press enter:

ls

Desktop    Documents    Downloads    notes.txt

That's the contents of where you are: three folders and one file, in this example. ls doesn't move you and doesn't change anything. It just shows you the room you're in.

Run both right now in your open terminal. pwd tells you the address. ls tells you the furniture. Between them you always know where you stand, and that's most of what "being good at the terminal" actually is.