Terminal as IDE

Some developers prefer the terminal over any IDE — and Claude Code is a terminal-native tool. The terminal-as-IDE workflow uses Claude Code alongside a terminal editor (Vim, Neovim, Emacs) and terminal multiplexer (tmux). The layout: one tmux pane for your editor, one pane for Claude Code, one pane for running your application. You switch between panes with keyboard shortcuts — no mouse, no window management, no context switching outside the terminal.

The terminal workflow has an advantage the IDE integrations do not: speed. There is no VS Code or JetBrains overhead. No Electron. No JVM. Just a terminal, Claude, and your editor. On lower-powered machines — a remote server, a cheap VPS, a Raspberry Pi — the terminal workflow is the only viable option. On powerful machines, it is a preference that trades graphical polish for keystroke efficiency.

# Create a session with three panes
tmux new-session -s dev -d

# Pane 0: Editor (Neovim)
tmux send-keys "nvim ." Enter

# Pane 1: Claude Code (right side)
tmux split-window -h
tmux send-keys "claude" Enter

# Pane 2: App/tests (bottom right)
tmux split-window -v
tmux send-keys "npm run dev" Enter

# Navigate: Ctrl+B + arrow keys
tmux attach-session -t dev