Level 3: The Dashboard
Know your tools. Claude Code has a dashboard of capabilities — understanding them helps you steer effectively.
Welcome to Level 3
In Level 2, you learned how to talk to Claude Code — the briefing mindset, specificity, verification, and when to reset. Now you need to know what Claude Code can actually do.
Think of Claude Code as having a dashboard of tools and controls. You do not need to press every button yourself — Claude picks the right tools automatically. But knowing what is on the dashboard changes how you steer.
A driver who knows their car has four-wheel drive takes different routes than one who does not. A pilot who knows their instruments can fly in fog. You are not learning to operate every tool manually. You are learning what is possible so you can make better requests and better decisions.
What you will learn
| Module | Topic | Core Idea |
|---|---|---|
| 3.1 | Built-in Tools | Read, Edit, Write, Glob, Grep, Bash — what each does |
| 3.2 | Slash Commands | The commands that control your session |
| 3.3 | Permission Modes | Default, Auto-Accept, Plan Mode — the trust spectrum |
| 3.4 | Sessions | Continue, resume, fork — your work persists |
| 3.5 | Getting Data In | All the ways to give Claude information |
| 3.6 | Getting Results Out | Copy, export, structured output — getting work into the formats you need |
| 3.7 | The Safety Net | Rewind, diff, permissions, Esc — the guardrails that let you work confidently |
| 3.8 | Checkpoint | Complete a multi-step task using at least 4 different slash commands |
The mental model: The Dashboard
You are not learning to be a mechanic. You are learning to be a better driver by understanding your vehicle. When you know that Claude can search across thousands of files in seconds (Grep), you stop manually pointing it at files. When you know it can undo its last action (/rewind), you stop being nervous about letting it try things. When you know about Plan Mode, you start using it for high-stakes work.
Knowledge of the dashboard changes your behavior even when you never touch the controls directly.
Claude Code has a dashboard of tools, commands, and modes. You do not need to operate them manually — Claude picks the right tool automatically. But knowing what is available changes how you steer: you make better requests, take more confident action, and unlock capabilities you did not know existed.
As you work through Level 3, try each feature at least once. Reading about a tool is useful; using it once is ten times more useful. By the end, you should be able to name at least 4 slash commands from memory and explain when you would use each.