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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.

Bad vs. good openers

← Tips Prompting

Bad vs. good openers

A useful names the file, the symptom, the repro, and the desired action. Vague prompts get vague results. The five-part shape gives Claude what it needs on the first try.

beginner

Claude doesn’t have your in its head until you point at it. Cold-start get cold-start answers.

The five-part shape of an opener that gives Claude what it needs:

  1. Location — the file, folder, page, or document involved
  2. Symptom — what’s currently happening
  3. Repro — how to make the symptom happen (URL, test name, user step)
  4. Desired — what should happen instead
  5. Constraint (optional) — anything that’s locked in (don’t break X, must use Y)

Bad: “Fix the dashboard.”

Good: “In src/pages/dashboard.tsx, the empty-state placeholder is overlapping the chart legend. Repro: log in as empty@example.com and open /dashboard. I want the placeholder centred and the legend hidden when there’s no data.”

Notice: the good version is one short paragraph, not a wall of text. Specificity beats length.

When the prompt is more open than a bug fix — exploring a new area, planning a refactor — front-load the grounding with the “Read X. Then ask Y” pattern:

Read src/services/billing.ts and src/routes/billing.ts. Then tell me where invoice totals are computed and whether there’s a single source of truth.

Two sentences. First sets context, second asks the question. Stops Claude from guessing what file you meant.

What doesn’t belong in an opener

Notice what the five-part shape has no room for: a role-play preamble. “You are a world-class senior engineer…” is the most-copied opener on the internet and it does nothing for you. The words that earn their place are the ones pointing at your project. See the drop-the-persona tip.

Next tip →

Brief Claude like a colleague (the 5-line template)

A one-line gets one-line-quality work. Brief Claude with Role + Goal + Task + Constraints + Context — the same shape you'd hand a colleague who's helping with the task.

Open it → Back to all tips