16.1 — The Desktop App: graphical interface and first launch
Claude Code's Desktop App is a complete graphical interface available on macOS and Windows. It offers everything the CLI does — reading and modifying files, running commands, navigating the codebase — but in a visual environment designed for long work sessions. No terminal to configure: you download the app, authenticate with your Anthropic account, and immediately find your environment.
The app is organized around three main tabs. Chat: a general conversation without file access, similar to claude.ai. Cowork: an autonomous background agent working on tasks in a cloud VM with its own environment. Code: an interactive programming assistant with direct access to your local files