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, where you validate each change in real time. This last tab is what replaces the CLI for daily development.
The interface provides enriched visualization that the terminal cannot offer. Code diffs are shown with syntax highlighting and inline comments. Images and screenshots render directly in the conversation. Files created or modified are clearly listed with quick access to the details of each change. For frontend development, it's a radical shift: you see the output of your work without leaving the tool.
On the configuration side, nothing to redo. Your CLAUDE.md files, your MCP servers, your settings, everything is picked up automatically. The app detects your projects and lets you navigate between them via the sidebar. Permissions work differently from the CLI: you choose between Ask (manual approval), Auto accept edits, Plan mode, or the full bypass via Settings.
Install in practice:
# macOS: download the .dmg from the Anthropic site
# Windows: standard .exe installer
# Authentication: Anthropic account (the same one as for the CLI)
Key takeaways
The Desktop App is not a simplified Claude Code. It's the same engine with a graphical layer that adds visual rendering of diffs, inline image display, parallel sessions, and scheduled tasks — capabilities impossible in pure terminal.