Claude Code, minus the folder

I'm not a big fan of the Claude desktop app. It's slower and less reliable than Claude Code, and it struggles as soon as a task gets more complex than a simple chat. So now I use Claude Code for pretty much everything instead, from quick questions to research and planning.

The catch is that Claude Code always runs inside a folder. For a coding project that's fine, you open the terminal in the repo and type claude. For everything else there's no project, so I used to start it wherever my terminal was, usually my home folder. It got messy fast:

• Files everywhere: notes, scripts and downloads all ended up in my home folder.
• Cluttered history: sessions are grouped by folder, so /resume was a long list of unrelated chats.
• Hard to pick up: to continue something a few days later, I had to remember where I'd started it.

I wanted something like the "new chat" button in the Claude app, but in the terminal.

The fix

A few lines in my .zshrc. There's one Sessions folder, and every chat gets its own subfolder inside it.

_cc_session_dir() {
  local base="$HOME/Progetti/Sessions"
  local name="$1"
  if [[ -z "$name" || "$name" == "new" ]]; then
    name=$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S)
  fi
  mkdir -p "$base/$name"
  echo "$base/$name"
}

cc() {
  if [[ $# -eq 0 ]]; then
    claude
  else
    local dir
    dir=$(_cc_session_dir "$1")
    (cd "$dir" && claude)
  fi
}

How I use it

cc is just a shortcut, it runs the normal Claude Code. On its own it's the same as typing claude in the current folder, which is what I use when I'm already inside a project.

cc new creates a folder named after the current date and time, like 2026-10-09-143012, and starts Claude in there. That's my "new chat" button. Whatever Claude creates stays in that folder, and when I'm done I close the terminal and forget about it.

cc {name} does the same, but with a name, for example cc japan-trip. The folder sticks around, so a week later I run cc japan-trip again and I'm back where I left off, with the files from last time and only that topic's chats in /resume. I use it for anything that takes more than one sitting, like a trip or an article. Basically projects in the Claude app, but with plain folders.

Bonus

It's easy to build on this for the things you do most. If you have separate personal and work accounts, make a second version that sets CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR. Claude Code reads its login, settings and memory from that folder, so each account stays separate and switching is just a different command.

Or, if there's a folder you open all the time, like a notes vault, make a shortcut that jumps there and starts Claude. It can search, update and write your notes without you having to cd around first.