Skip to content

Keyboard

Shortcuts

Everyone learns Esc. These are the rest — all checked against Claude Code itself, not copied off a blog.

The three to learn first

If you remember nothing else.

  • Esc Esc
    Stop Claude mid-action The moment Claude starts doing something you did not intend.
  • Esc thenEsc Esc thenEsc
    Clear the input box Your half-written prompt has turned into a mess and you want a clean line.
  • Shift +Tab Shift +Tab
    Cycle permission mode Starting an exploration (plan) or letting an agreed plan run (accept edits). On older Windows setups without VT mode, this is Meta+M instead.

Writing the prompt

Composing, searching, pasting.

  • Ctrl +J Ctrl +J
    Start a new line without sending Any prompt longer than one sentence.
  • Ctrl +R Ctrl +R
    Search your prompt history "What did I type last week that worked?" Inside the search, Ctrl+S cycles the scope: this session → this project → everywhere.
  • Ctrl +S Ctrl +S
    Park the half-written prompt You are three sentences into a prompt and need to go check something.
  • Ctrl +G Ctrl +G
    Edit the prompt in your real editor Writing anything long or carefully structured.
  • Ctrl +V Alt +V
    Paste an image Anything visual. Annotate the screenshot first and it works even better. Ctrl+V, not Cmd+V — macOS keeps Cmd+V for its own paste. Windows and WSL use Alt+V. On WSL both Ctrl+V and Alt+V work.
  • Option +T Alt +T
    Toggle thinking for the next turn One hard question in the middle of otherwise simple work.
  • Ctrl +_ Ctrl +_
    Undo in the input box You deleted half a prompt by accident.

Seeing what happened

What Claude did and what it plans to do.

  • Ctrl +O Ctrl +O
    Toggle the full transcript You want to know what it actually did, not the summary.
  • Ctrl +T Ctrl +T
    Toggle the task checklist Any multi-step task, before it gets far.

Running the session

Long jobs, models, the terminal.

  • Ctrl +B Ctrl +B
    Send the running job to the background A long build, test run, or search you do not want to sit and watch.
  • Option +P Alt +P
    Switch model Between tasks — rarely a good idea mid-task.
  • Option +O Alt +O
    Toggle fast mode Straightforward work where you would rather have speed than depth.
  • Ctrl +Z Ctrl +Z
    Step out to the shell without quitting You need the terminal for one command and do not want to lose the session. Terminal-level shortcut (Unix SIGTSTP), not a Claude Code binding. Windows has no direct equivalent.

The keys are the same on both systems — only the modifier's name changes (macOS calls Alt Option). Run /keybindings in any session to see exactly what is bound on your machine.

Always look at the diff before you accept

← Tips Compliance & safety

Always look at the diff before you accept

Claude is fast and capable — treat it like a brilliant junior. Read what it's about to change before saying yes. Skipping the diff review is the most expensive habit a newcomer can pick up.

beginner

The mental : Claude is a brilliant junior colleague. Capable, fast, mostly correct. But brilliant junior still means review-before-merge.

Every time Claude proposes a change, it shows you the diff before applying. Read it. Even briefly. Even when you trust the result.

The two failure modes the diff catches:

  1. Wrong scope — Claude edited 14 files when you wanted 1. Easier to catch in the diff than to undo later.
  2. Subtle wrong fix — Claude “fixed” a bug by suppressing the symptom instead of finding the cause. Often invisible if you don’t read the code.

Trust grows over time as Claude learns your (via CLAUDE.md and ). It never grows to “auto-accept everything”. The diff is cheap; the cleanup isn’t.

Get a second opinion that isn’t compromised

Reading the diff yourself catches scope and obvious wrongness. For anything substantial, add a machine reviewer — but not the that wrote the code, which will pass its own work almost every time. Open a fresh session and hand it the diff cold. See the review-in-a-fresh-session tip.

has this built in as /code-review, with effort levels you can turn up when the change deserves it.

Next tip →

Real bank data at runtime: Azure OpenAI only

If a tool will process real bank data at runtime, its calls MUST go through Azure OpenAI. The public and Gemini are off-limits for real customer data. This is data-residency, not a preference.

Open it → Back to all tips