Reading the line before you type

Look at your open terminal. There's a line of text ending in a blinking cursor. That line is called the prompt. Not the kind of prompt you write for an AI. This is the older meaning: the computer is prompting you, as in waiting for you, to type something.

A typical Mac prompt looks like this:

maya@macbook ~ %

Reading it left to right:

• maya is the username. Yours will be your account name.
• macbook is the computer's name.
• ~ is where you currently are in your files. The ~ symbol is shorthand for your home folder. More on that next lesson.
• % is just the punctuation that marks the end of the prompt. On Windows you'll often see >, on some setups $. It's a finish line, nothing more.

After the % (or > or $) is where your typing goes.

Type your first command

In the terminal, type this exactly, then press enter:

whoami

The terminal prints your username back at you and then shows a fresh prompt, ready for the next thing.

maya@macbook ~ % whoami
maya
maya@macbook ~ %

That's the full loop you'll repeat all day: there's a prompt, you type a command, you press enter, the computer answers, a fresh prompt appears. whoami is the gentlest possible command. It changes nothing. It just asks the computer "who am I logged in as" and the computer answers. You've now run a real terminal command. The first one is behind you.