> man terms

glossary

Every word the lessons use, in plain English. Skim it now, or come back whenever a term slips your mind. Nothing here assumes you already know it.

The big picture

Vibe coding: Building software by describing what you want to an AI assistant in plain English, instead of typing all the code yourself.
Claude Code: The AI assistant you run in your terminal. You talk to it in plain English and it writes and edits the files in your project.
Project: A single folder that holds everything for one thing you are building. One project, one folder.

Your computer & the terminal

Terminal: A plain-text window where you type commands to your computer instead of clicking buttons. On Windows, the terminal you use is called PowerShell.
PowerShell: The terminal built into Windows. Open it from the Start menu — type "PowerShell" and click Windows PowerShell. This is where you run commands in this guide.
Command: A line of text you type into PowerShell to make your computer do something. Press Enter to run it.
Directory: Another word for "folder." Builders say directory; they mean the same thing.
Home folder: Your personal top-level folder on Windows: C:\Users\YourName, where Documents, Downloads, and Desktop live. PowerShell lets you write it as the shortcut ~.
Working directory: The folder your terminal is currently standing in. Commands act here unless you say otherwise.
pwd: "Print working directory" — the command that answers "where am I right now?"
ls: "List" — the command that shows what files and folders are in your current spot.
cd: "Change directory" — the command that moves you into a folder. "cd .." goes up a level; "cd ~" goes home.
mkdir: "Make directory" — the command that creates a new folder.

The tools you installed

VS Code: A free program for viewing and editing your project files. The window where you and your assistant work side by side.
Node: Software that runs many modern apps and websites on your computer. Installing it also gives you npm.
npm: A helper that comes with Node and fetches the building blocks (packages) your projects need.

Your AI assistant, in depth

AI model: The program behind your assistant, trained on huge amounts of text to produce useful responses. Not a person and not a search engine.
Token: The small chunks of text an AI reads and writes — roughly three-quarters of a word each. Everything you send and everything Claude replies is counted in tokens, and your plan is really a bucket of tokens.
Opus / Sonnet / Haiku: The family of Claude models. Opus is most powerful but burns your allowance fastest; Sonnet is the efficient everyday default you should live in; Haiku is small, fast, cheap, and noticeably less capable. Switch with /model sonnet.
Effort: How much thinking the assistant does before answering. More thinking can mean better answers on hard problems but uses more tokens; for routine work, a normal reply is cheaper and just as good.
Plans (Free / Pro / Max): Claude's tiers. Free is casual chat only; Pro (~$24 CAD/mo) is where you start for real building; Max (from ~$140 CAD/mo) is for heavy users who keep hitting limits. The upgrade screen shows prices in Canadian dollars.
Usage allowance: What your paid plan gives you: a generous amount of AI use that refills on a schedule (a 5-hour window plus a weekly cap), shared between Claude Code and the Claude website.
5-hour window: A usage limit that starts when you send your first message and resets about five hours later.
Context window: The amount of conversation the assistant can actively hold at once — its working memory for the current session.
Compacting: When the assistant summarizes the earlier part of a long conversation to free up room. Normal housekeeping; your files are never affected.
/clear and /compact: Commands you type to Claude: /clear wipes the conversation for a fresh start; /compact summarizes it to free up room. Start a fresh conversation per task.
CLAUDE.md: A small notes file Claude reads automatically at the start of every conversation. The home for your project's standing rules (what it is, how to run it, do/don't preferences). Keep it short — it loads every time. Not the place for plans; that's PLAN.md.
claude -c: A way to reopen your most recent conversation instead of starting fresh (the -c is for "continue"). Handy if you closed Claude by accident — but for a new task, a fresh conversation is still the better, cheaper habit.

Saving & sharing

Git: A tool that makes save points (commits) of your project, right on your computer.
Commit: A saved snapshot of your whole project at one moment, with a short note. Like a labeled save point.
GitHub: A free website that stores a copy of your project and all its save points online — a backup and a way to share.
Repository (repo): Your project's home on GitHub — the online box holding all its files and save points.
Private vs public: A repo is one or the other. Private means only you (and people you invite) can see it — the right default while learning. Public means anyone on earth can read and copy it. Make new repos private unless you mean to share.
Push: Uploading your save points from your computer up to GitHub.
README: A file (README.md) that GitHub displays as your project's front page — its description. Ask Claude to write one explaining what the project is and how to run it.
Markdown: A simple way of formatting plain text (a # makes a heading, a dash makes a bullet) that GitHub turns into a tidy page. You don't need to learn it; Claude writes it.
PLAN.md: A notes file you keep in the project folder listing what you're building and the steps to do. It lets a fresh Claude conversation pick up where you left off, so you can keep conversations short.
Secret: Any private value a program needs but nobody else should see — a password, an API key, a token. Keep these out of your project files and out of your repo.
.env file: A plain-text file (named .env) that holds secrets like keys and passwords. Kept out of your repo on purpose, via .gitignore, so it never gets uploaded.
.gitignore: A list of files and folders Git should never save or upload — used to keep secrets (like .env) and clutter out of your repo.

Running & shipping

Dev server: A little program that runs your project on your computer and serves it to your browser while you build. Stop it anytime with Ctrl + C.
localhost: Your computer's private address for things running on it (e.g. localhost:4321). Only you can reach it.
Local vs web: Local means running on your own computer (just you). Web means published on the internet (anyone with the address).
Build: The step that packages your project into final, optimized files ready for the web. Usually lands in a folder called dist.
Deploy: Putting your built files onto the internet so others can visit them.
Cloudflare Pages: A free service that publishes your site and re-publishes it automatically every time you push to GitHub.
Custom domain: Your own web address, like yourname.com, that you buy (usually yearly) and point at your site.

When things go sideways

Error: A message from the computer saying something went wrong. Copy the whole thing to your assistant — it is a clue, not a scolding.
Debugging: Finding and fixing what went wrong. Usually: copy the error, paste it to your assistant, ask for the fix.