Files live in folders, and folders live inside other folders. In the terminal you are always standing inside exactly one of them, called the current folder (or working , which is the same thing in longer words).
Everything you type happens relative to that spot. Two commands keep you oriented.
pwd — where am I?
pwd stands for print working directory. It prints the full from the top of the disk down to where you are standing:
/home/user
Read that left to right: a folder called home, and inside it a folder called user. That second one is your home folder — the same place the shows as ~.
Note
A path is just a set of directions, with / between each step. /home/user/projects means “from the top, go into home, then user, then projects”. The very first / is the root of the whole disk.
ls — what is here?
ls is short for list. It shows what is inside the current folder:
downloads notes.txt projects todo.txt
Two folders and two files, sorted alphabetically. Note what ls does not show you: what is inside notes.txt. Reading files is a different job for a different command, coming in level 2.
Quick check
The terminal printed /home/user/projects. Which command did you just run?
Looking somewhere else without moving
ls takes an optional argument: a folder to look inside.
ls projects
That shows the contents of projects while you stay exactly where you are. Handy when you want a peek before deciding to go in.
Tip
Two useful flags here. ls -a also shows hidden files — the ones whose names start with a dot, like .git. ls -l prints one per line, which is easier to read when a folder is crowded. You can look either of them up any time with man ls.
Quick check
Why would you run ls -a instead of plain ls?
Try it
The terminal beside this lesson starts you in your home folder, with a couple of files and folders already there.
Run them in order:
pwd— see where you are standing.ls— see what is around you.
Then, if you like, try ls projects to look inside a folder without stepping into it.
Tip
Get this pair into your fingers. When you open a terminal in an unfamiliar project — or when an AI agent hands you one and says “run this here” — pwd and ls are how you check that “here” is the place you think it is.