Claude and Claude Code are best treated as two different working interfaces. Conversation is useful for analysis, planning and text work. Claude Code is a developer interface in the terminal that can work on a project, continue a session and execute code-related tasks.
Basic commands
claude- starts an interactive session,claude -p "..."- runs a prompt and exits,claude -c- continues the latest conversation in the current directory,claude -r "session" "..."- resumes the selected session.
When it makes sense
For refactoring, tests, log analysis and repository work, a terminal agent can save time. For a quick marketing brief, the terminal only raises the entry barrier.