Claude Code Commands (100+): The Reference

You're sitting at the terminal, have Claude Code installed, and you're thinking: "Okay, now what?"

I know that feeling well. When I first typed claude, the tool felt like a black hole. There are now well over 100 documented command entries once you count built-ins, skills, workflows, and aliases.

This is the current Claude Code command landscape: built-in slash commands, bundled skills and workflows, CLI subcommands, flags, and keyboard shortcuts. Not every command appears for every account because platform, plan, and provider matter. For how Claude Code stacks up against OpenAI Codex, see our Claude Code vs. OpenAI Codex comparison.

I cross-checked the tables against Anthropic's official command reference, CLI reference, interactive-mode documentation, and installation guide. The documentation changes frequently, so retired commands are listed separately.

Installing and Starting Claude Code

# Recommended native installation on macOS, Linux, and WSL
curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

# Native installation in Windows PowerShell
irm https://claude.ai/install.ps1 | iex

# Verify the installation
claude --version

# Start Claude Code
claude                          # Interactive mode
claude "Fix the bug in auth"    # With initial prompt
claude -p "Analyze this code"   # One-time query without session
claude -c                       # Continue last session

Slash Commands (Built-in)

These commands are your daily tools when working with Claude Code. Type / followed by any letters to filter. Not all commands are visible to every user, some depend on platform, plan, or environment.

Version badges show the earliest published version in which the command appears in Anthropic's official changelog, releases, or published Claude Code package.

Bundled Skills and Workflows

Bundled skills are detailed work instructions rather than hard-coded UI logic. Claude can select them itself when the task fits, except for /verify. Workflows go further and distribute background work across several agents.

Bundled Workflow

Retired Commands

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts make the difference between productive flow and constant looking things up. Here are all available shortcuts for interactive mode.

General Controls

Text Editing

Multi-line Input

Quick Commands

Theme and Voice Input

Transcript Viewer

Ctrl+O opens the full conversation with tool calls and timestamps. The viewer has its own shortcuts.

CLI Commands

For everyday work, starting, resuming, and claude mcp are usually enough. The CLI can now also manage background sessions, cloud environments, plugins, and local project data.

CLI Flags

CLI flags are very useful for starting Claude Code with the right settings.

Basic Flags

Model & System Prompt

Agents & Subagents

Permissions & Security

MCP Server & Integration

Output & Format

Directories & Session

Remote & More

Environment Variables

Beyond CLI flags, there are numerous environment variables that control Claude Code behavior. Set them in your shell or in settings.json under the env key. Values in a settings env override shell variables. Changes apply to running sessions unless a variable is explicitly read only at startup.

Model & Performance

Bash & Timeouts

Feature Toggles

Authentication & Provider

MCP (Model Context Protocol) Integration

MCP is one of Claude Code's most important extensions. With it, you can directly integrate external tools and services. The community is already delivering hundreds of MCP server implementations and constantly expanding the ecosystem.

# Add MCP server
claude mcp add --transport http github https://mcp.github.com

# Start with debug
claude --debug "mcp"

# Expose Claude Code itself as an MCP server
claude mcp serve

Tool Search can load MCP tools on demand and save context. Control it through ENABLE_TOOL_SEARCH, for example with auto, true, false, or auto:N. The best setting depends on the provider, MCP servers, and tool count.

Another feature is MCP Elicitation: MCP servers can display interactive forms or browser URLs during a task to request structured input. MCP servers can also provide their own commands in the format /mcp__<server>__<prompt>.

Skills

One of the coolest features of Claude Code? You can create your own skills that perfectly fit your workflow. Skills are the evolution of former custom commands and follow the open Agent Skills standard.

Project skills are stored in .claude/skills/ and are available to everyone in the project. Personal skills go in ~/.claude/skills/ and only apply to you. Enterprise skills are distributed organization-wide through managed settings.

---
name: test-all
description: Runs all tests and linters
argument-hint: [test-suite] [flags]
allowed-tools: Bash(npm test:*), Bash(npm run:*)
model: sonnet
disable-model-invocation: false
context: fork
---

Run the following tests:
1. npm test $ARGUMENTS
2. npm run lint
3. npm run typecheck

Show me a summary of all results.

After creating it, simply type /test-all and Claude runs your complete test suite. I have about 10 such skills for recurring tasks.

Troubleshooting: When Claude Code Doesn't Do What It Should

Even after hundreds of sessions, I sometimes run into problems. Here are the most common errors and their solutions.

You can use the following debug commands for problem analysis:

# Check system status
/status

# Check installation
/doctor

# Visualize context usage
/context

# Show token costs
/cost

# Verbose mode for details
claude --verbose

# Activate debug mode
claude --debug "api,mcp"

# Session troubleshooting
/debug "my problem"

# Open configuration
/config