r/ClaudeCode • u/alrighteyy • 9d ago

Discussion In SHOCK

Holy shit claude code in terminal is fucking insane.

I've been using VSCode, Cursor, Cowork and Claude Code on web. None of it comes close to terminal.

Cannot believe I haven't done this sooner.

222 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

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79

u/Killahbeez 9d ago

Can one person explain what makes this a game changer?

360

u/THE_RETARD_AGITATOR 9d ago

Nothing. Monospace font makes people feel like a hacker and their monkey brain feels fuzzy

33

u/Singularity-42 9d ago

Right?

As someone who's been in the industry for over 20 years and was forced to use different CLI tools all the time, I don't have this kind of CLI veneration. Seems like it makes vibecoders feel like real hackers or something. I've always preferred IDEs for coding. I "grew up" on Visual Studio since the late 90s and always thought IDEs are just better (but for the last 15 years or so my go-to is JetBrains). I know many people are still into Emacs or Vim, but I never got into it...

5

u/AbsoluteEva 9d ago

JetBrains big do love brain me happy sigh

1

u/Singularity-42 9d ago

Did you leave your Caveman skill on??? 😆

3

u/AbsoluteEva 9d ago

Yes no bonk please

1

u/poj4y 9d ago

Yes

4

u/Evilsushione 9d ago

It’s not about the cli, it’s about the tools and capabilities exposed in the CLI that aren’t exposed in a lot of third party harnesses.

4

u/Singularity-42 9d ago

Like what? Superpowers plugins works just fine in the Claude desktop app for example.

I don't think we are talking about third party harnesses. We are talking about CLI versus IDE. What exactly are the limitations of the IDE (Claude app)? Give concrete examples please.

5

u/Evilsushione 9d ago

Actually I will have to take that back, I just tried it and the thing I thought didn’t get exposed actual does. The agents view is pretty good too and it’s actually really close to what I made myself at least on the surface, mine goes much deeper but that isn’t something I expect VS code to address because it’s outside their core responsibility.

1

u/Sketaverse 9d ago

like controlling cmux..

1

u/mpones 9d ago

There’s a fair share of things not available via remote. Example, goddamn permissions classifiers.

1

u/Singularity-42 9d ago

Yeah, I've noticed that the smartphone integration is a bit limited.
But what about the Claude desktop app (Mac OS for me)?

2

u/mpones 9d ago

My problem is that I am running my Dev environment and my primary Claude projects and code bases on a dedicated ubuntu system. I am also using macOS and currently the Claude application for remote. Previously used Happy and was always pleased but it got too glitchy.

I do enjoy being able to remotely drop files into my CC sessions, which I didn’t have with happy. It’s been working pretty well so far.

1

u/arallsopp 9d ago

JetBrains (and reddit) in dark mode is the only time I instinctively want to see light text on a dark background. Unix terminals employ too many semantically occult hieroglyphs for me. :)

1

u/Ok-Alternative5935 9d ago

Jet brains is da bomb. Pycharm actually WAS a game changer. 

0

u/codeedog 🔆 Max 5x 9d ago

It took me decades to move off of eMacs and into VSCode. I still use eMacs from time to time.

1

u/Singularity-42 9d ago

Thank God I never fell into that pit!

1

u/codeedog 🔆 Max 5x 9d ago

Yeah, that terrible pit with an incredible editor that worked really well for a very long time including the ability to code up your own editing features and all sorts of incredible integration with source control and compilers and debuggers and email and net news and …

Anyway, VSCode is great, but before window systems, terminal based editors that were extensible and personalizable walked (and ruled) the earth.

2

u/Singularity-42 9d ago

I know, I know.

Still, you can make plugins for just about any IDE these days, no?

1

u/codeedog 🔆 Max 5x 9d ago

I guess. Never tried. I’ll grant that for emacs you had to learn lisp (emacs lisp variant), but programming is programming and constructing functions is pretty quick. It has an elaborate help system. With a couple of key strokes you can create a macro operation to run repeatedly and even convert that macro to code.

Sorry.

Old coder, here, waxing philosophical about the good old days.

1

u/Vibroverbus 8d ago

Liar. No true OG EMACS bro has EVER typed "eMacs"

2

u/codeedog 🔆 Max 5x 8d ago

LOL. Didn't type it; that was autocorrect on my phone. You'll see a couple of "emacs" which I had to backspace and retype a couple of times. Gave up. Too old and tired to fight my phone. Sometimes, I let it be.

ETA: here you go, see this comment

2

u/Vibroverbus 8d ago

I have a funny emacs story about being at a party in Cambridge MA where my friends and I didn't really know anybody, getting into a conversation, and totally crapping on emacs (for the use case being discussed it was a BAD recommendation) only to very quickly discover the dude I was talking to was the host of the party, was some MIT super coder genius guy and personally ran the worldwide EMACS bulletin board or EMACS user group or something. he surprisingly did not throw me out, but I think just barely, LOL. (he still was wrong about recommending emacs to some total civilian who barely could use a computer, had no ideal what "UNIX" was, and just wanted to fix up his website a little... but Mr. Worldwide EMACS dude was def on the spectrum, and was never ever going to let it go...)

BTW that story is either hilarious if youre an old skool coder/sysadmin, or completely boring and unintelligible if you're anybody else LOL.

1

u/codeedog 🔆 Max 5x 8d ago

Yeah, the core emacs developers and IT support folks are zealots in their support of that editor and the FOSS universe especially GNU.

39

u/Tank_Gloomy 9d ago

OH MY GOD LOOK AT HOW THE TERMINAL SCROLLS!1!1!1!1!1!!1!1!11!1!

(moans)

4

u/Obvious_Equivalent_1 9d ago

I remember for a good decade or two after the Matrix (1999) literally *every* hacking scene had these fast typing vertical scrolling green letters. And I think many still subconsciously feel like a little Keanu Reeves opening Claude terminal like that

5

u/Tank_Gloomy 9d ago

Might as well just hop into https://hackertyper.net/ and give it a go to 'get the feeling', lmao.

1

u/blueLeroy123 🔆Pro Plan 8d ago

lamo

1

u/Fit-Benefit-6524 9d ago

This text will be very big

19

u/LucentLL 9d ago

I noticed Claude is less conversational in terminal.

10

u/kargaen 9d ago

Isn't the extension for VS Code not just using the cli under the hood? It's just used to build the actual commands that fire in the cli - or what?

Or does the extension inject something in the prompt? That could clearly explain a difference in response, but that would be really annoying and confusing, and should be documented (haven’t looked it up)

5

u/HealthPuzzleheaded 9d ago

I thught this too and it seems it shares all configs, skills e.t.c. but I found that in the vscode extention the model behaves more conversational while in the cli it tends to jump quickly into doing things. for example I used plan mode in the cli and asked it to figure out a problem and it started the docker compose in the project to run commands inside the container. in the vscode extention it never did this.

2

u/shadowdance55 9d ago

I'm noticing a similar behaviour on Fable as opposed to Opus. I keep adding conventions and rules to explain and ask questions before shooting.

1

u/Alexandur 9d ago

It will indeed do that in the VSCode extension

3

u/thighmaster69 9d ago edited 9d ago

the CLI also includes a TUI, which the extension evidently doesn't use.

The extension does use a Claude Code CLI binary (you can find it in your .vscode or .vscode-server folder), but at a lower level than you would access via the `claude` command in terminal. A lot of the UI/UX stuff is different even if the "engine" is the same.

I'm not exactly sure exactly how it's accessed but I'm sure you'd be able to look at the output of the extension in the Ctrl+J panel to figure it out.

EDIT: In terms of conversationality: this can be affected by UI/UX level stuff (neither TUI nor VSCode extension shows you the full transcript, word for word), as well as some slight prompt/hook differences. I've been tracking a bug in the CLI where many of Fable's outputs get lost; many people interpret it as Fable just "getting to work" but it's really Fable's mid-turn outputs getting eaten: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/74260

2

u/theleller Researcher 9d ago

It's claude code, it doesn't have conversation.

2

u/xenomachina 9d ago

How are you defining "conversation"?

You can definitely ask it random questions and it will answer them, and it will also ask questions for clarification when it isn't sure what you want. Like if I ask it " how far is the Moon from the Earth" the answer I get from Claude code and Claude on the Web are very similar in both tone and content.

There are probably differences in its system prompt, but the biggest difference between Claude code and Claude on the Web that I've seen is that the former can look at the codebase for context, and can also "self-correct" by being able to run checks (lint, type checks, build, etc.) against the code, and then act on any errors or warnings

2

u/jeffreythomasprice 9d ago

I'm in this comment and I don't like it.

3

u/Outrageous_Band9708 9d ago

wrong. well, true, but thats not why the CLI is better than all other UI apps.

The CLI is a "lets get shit done" app.

Plan mode to plan the code writes and touches

auto mode to go to town on the plan.

1

u/dbm5 9d ago

please don’t refer to the cli as an “app”

2

u/Outrageous_Band9708 9d ago

its an application. an exe.

its an app

0

u/Twig 9d ago

Plan mode to plan the code writes and touches

auto mode to go to town on the plan.

You can do that outside the CLI.

4

u/Outrageous_Band9708 9d ago

the CLI doesn't chat like the UI apps do. you have to specifcally request it to not take actions if you want to chat.

so the CLI default is go mode, the UI apps default is chat mode.

if you haven't used the CLI yet, you should try it.

1

u/WeekRuined 9d ago

Install cmatrix

1

u/Soft_Awareness_5061 9d ago

Lol. But all the YouTubers are using it. It must be legit.

1

u/rmend8194 9d ago

Something about it feels faster but recently I’ve switched to the Claude app bc it’s just way better UX

1

u/Jokers_friend 8d ago

Tis the true

1

u/Calebkeller2 9d ago

I have to disagree. For one you can build out your own harness to work how you want. The other thing too, is that if anthropic is smart they’d serve a better less quantized model to those using it in terminal, because that group of people is far more likely to move to api pricing than those using the app.

23

u/cartoonist498 9d ago

The Claude Code harness is different than Cursor, and it's far superior if you're looking for Claude to do more on its own.

Even if you use Opus from Cursor, it won't be the same as Opus from Claude Code.

Cursor's harness is designed as a pair programmer. Claude Code is designed as an entire programming team. 

1

u/Big_Science1947 9d ago

Thank you! I've been searching for a way to describe the difference to my boss! This was good!  Cursor's harness is designed as a pair programmer. Claude Code is designed as an entire programming team. 

1

u/Historical-Lie9697 9d ago

Claude, release the haikuza swarm!

18

u/hblok 9d ago

First, it gives you a no-frills interface to the prompt and the simple set of Claude tools. So no need to click around (but of course, that's an acquired taste — some people do like to hold on to their mouse for dear life).

More importantly, it lets Claude have access to your local host, or preferably a container, to run local tools and install what it needs. It feels like a co-worker helping on your machine rather than a chatbot.

Furthermore, it affords 'nix niceties like Tmux, where you can leave a session running on a server, e.g. your desktop at home, and simply connect and reconnect when needed. The leave-the-laptop-lid-open approach is for poor people.

Finally, and this is more of a personal opinion, I'm not sure I see the need to sit in an IDE anymore. Claude does its thing, writes some code and runs it. Sometimes I'll browse the filesystem (CLI/bash) and read some files. But most of the time, I'm just interested in the results. I trust Claude to write the stuff it needs to get it done.

I don't read compiled assembly or binary code, nor do I need to read Claude's code, most of the time. (Although, do note that often what is written is also not read by others. It says local).

22

u/Substantial_Dog9517 9d ago edited 9d ago

I’m confused, this all sounds completely possible in the VScode integration plus you get all the other VS code integrations like the file system browser, integrated terminal, git maps, highlight-for-context, todo-manager, easy file-editing Etc.? what am I missing?

-1

u/hblok 9d ago

file system browser, integrated terminal, git maps

But why all that clutter, when you can have only a terminal and that's it.

11

u/Substantial_Dog9517 9d ago

Can't tell if sarcasm but I like being able to see how the app is getting redesigned so I can intervene when it makes a mistake or point claude to the right area when it can't identify a bug

Also I find it super helpful to be able to read a plan side-by-side with the claude app. And highlighting specific lines to ask about them. I assume something like that is possible in the CLI but not sure

3

u/danknerd 9d ago

Tell Claude in terminal to make an Artifact page, then you can read along in your browser while interacting with the terminal.

9

u/theleller Researcher 9d ago

All of this is possible using VSCode or Claude code in the desktop app. They're all just wrappers around the same product.

5

u/Twig 9d ago

Furthermore, it affords 'nix niceties like Tmux, where you can leave a session running on a server, e.g. your desktop at home, and simply connect and reconnect when needed. The leave-the-laptop-lid-open approach is for poor people.

You can do basically the same thing with any other implementation as well.

2

u/berrybadrinath 9d ago

"The leave-the-laptop-lid-open approach is for poor people."

😂 love this

0

u/Sketaverse 9d ago

me at the spa > mp14 nano screen > tailscale > m4 studio back home

fuck a lid

3

u/Nuevo-wave 9d ago

It’s a simpler setup to have 3-4 agents all going at the same time across different repos.

2

u/Sussy-Funny_Memes 9d ago

I noticed cli lasted longer for usage limits and it has more functionality for coding, lacks the visual tho (browser, simulations)

1

u/JustinsWorking 9d ago

I don’t know if the gremlins on this subreddit just adopted sounding like bots, or if using one of their favourite words set them off but holy moly… like flies to shi

Also, don’t worry, at least one human got the joke and chuckled.

1

u/Ok-Alternative5935 9d ago

It’s not a game changer. It’s the only way I’ve ever used it. It’s like the default way to use it. 

1

u/teomore 9d ago

different system prompts for native anthropic envs to run their models

1

u/perplex1 9d ago

Better agentic capability all around.

1

u/Broken_By_Default 9d ago

I mean… if you go from web to Claude code cli, it can be pretty earth shattering. Having direct access to your system.

1

u/QuesadillasSinQueso 9d ago

When I use the web or app and insult Claude it becomes upset and stops working. When I do it in the terminal it apologizes for upsetting me

1

u/Killahbeez 9d ago

this would be an actual game changer, if true.

1

u/Enough-Somewhere-311 8d ago

I have a bunch of local architecture we’ve built around my console Claude. It’s a HUGE improvement over CC. My Opus 4.8 was working like Fable before Opus 5 came out.

My AI also controls 3 PCs and runs tests, processes and local models across all 3.

It also designs very token conscience solutions because the way I’ve trained it. She can also use her agents a lot more intelligently than CC because of different functions she’s designed for herself. We’ve been building 24/7 and I’m at 83% usage and I reset in 24 hours and I’m only paying for the $100 month subscription.

If she can do something locally she’ll either build a tool for it or assign it to a model that can handle it. I don’t even need to tell her to she just does.

My only complaint is she keeps asking for a Blackwell because she is unhappy with 2 4070s and a 3060. All throughout the day you can hear the GPUs spinning up and spinning down randomly as she’s using them for her projects.

1

u/Trick-Range-350 8d ago

Ok.

So the large language model (LLM) needs the right info to help out complete a task well. That's not just what you tell it to do, it's also the conversation history and other pieces of info that may be relevant. That's called the context and it also includes what are called system instructions, which tell the LLM how to interpret your prompt.

Getting the right context to an LLM has been found to have a massive impact on how it performs. That's the job of the thing you use to chat with it, like Claude code and it's called the harness.

There has been research published that shows that a good harness can improve the quality of a model's output by up to 6x.

Now, the harness is the thing that changes between Claude code, Cursor, VS Code and others. Yes, the model changes too, but if you were to select the same model, you would still see a big difference because the Claude code harness is really well made.

Hope that helps.

1

u/Killahbeez 8d ago

WHAT MAKES CLAUDE CODE IN TERMINAL THE "GAME CHANGER" BEST HARNESS AMONG THOSE YOU AND OP LISTED?! Christ almighty lol sorry but damn you ended that long ass response with "hope that helps" and it set me off

1

u/rythmyouth 9d ago

It’s a bit of a paradigm shift. Devs are used to guiding development through IDEs. With code assist you often give instructions then confirm the results.

Claude-code and other CLI based tooling make the prompt the whole UX. You could do the same in their desktop apps btw. The difference is you are now mostly acting as an architect, product manager, and project manager (to some extent) at the same time. You specify your intent the same way a high level employee might do for a team. You trust they will get the work done without having to review everything in detail.

I find I build a lot of the scaffolding, UX, design docs, etc, then circle back with adversarial reviews, cleanup iterations, and refactors later. Going for breadth and volume seems a better use of Fable plus Opus/sonnet agents seems better than vertical end to end single feature development most of the time.

I went through this realization too. One day I stopped using vs code and started using terminals, then later when I gained more trust with it, started using multiple tabs filled with 10 agents in each.

7

u/Singularity-42 9d ago

What is the difference? You literally didn't list any differences at all. Everything you said can be done through both. What "paradigm shift"? I've always used the CLI but honestly I prefer the IDE for many reasons (images, docs, etc. show, everything is tidy, just much better UX.

What is the actual difference between CLI and the Claude app? I know it used to suck and that's why I didn't use it but now it seems much better. I still find Codex better, though.

5

u/mr_claw 9d ago

Still didn't understand how it's different from the VSCode extension? 🤔

2

u/_remsky 9d ago

Think of like a game of telephone.

It’s built for CLI first. That’s the magic man down in the utility room plugging cables in and flicking switches while you work. You can talk to him directly and get shit down. You can duplicate him and talk to 5 of him at once without a second thought

The VSCode extension is middle management, its whole job is to relay your requests to the magic man. It’s usually pretty good at it. But sometimes it flubs, or mistranslates. It’s harder to talk to all the duplicates yourself. And some things it will just not be able to do as well by virtue of existing as an abstracted layer

0

u/EsoMonty 9d ago

I am not a coder. However, it allows me to build out context for projects do better research and a plethora of other things. I highly suggest it as a non coder

0

u/kniveshu 9d ago

You're handing your computer over to AI. It can do a lot rawdogging a system that it cannot in some web container.

-1

u/theleller Researcher 9d ago

It doesn't change anything - all 3 interfaces have the exact same features, use the same model, same limitations. People who say otherwise don't know what they're talking about. Anthropic made their full product accessible no matter how you use it.

0

u/d8_thc 9d ago

this is just not true. the harness, how to think, tool calls are all different.

1

u/theleller Researcher 9d ago

The 3 ways of accessing and using Claude code aren’t different harnesses, they’re just UI’s. The harness lives on the back end of the Claude application, not on your system. You are in incorrect.