The Angular CLI is a command-line interface tool that you use to initialize, develop, scaffold, and maintain Angular applications. You can use the tool directly in a command shell, or indirectly through an interactive UI such as [Angular Console](https://angularconsole.com).
To create, build, and serve a new, basic Angular project on a development server, go to the parent directory of your new workspace use the following commands:
When you use the [ng serve](cli/serve) command to build an app and serve it locally, the server automatically rebuilds the app and reloads the page when you change any of the source files.
When you run `ng new my-first-project` a new folder, named `my-first-project`, will be created in the current working directory. Since you want to be able to create files inside that folder, make sure you have sufficient rights in the current working directory before running the command.
If the current working directory is not the right place for your project, you can change to a more appropriate directory by running `cd <path-to-other-directory>` first.
Commands such as [add](cli/add) and [generate](cli/generate), which create or operate on apps and libraries, must be executed from within a workspace or project folder.
This is where you can set per-project defaults for CLI command options, and specify configurations to use when the CLI builds a project for different targets.
The [ng config](cli/config) command lets you set and retrieve configuration values from the command line, or you can edit the `angular.json` file directly.
Note that option names in the configuration file must use [camelCase](guide/glossary#case-types), while option names supplied to commands can use either camelCase or dash-case.
Options that specify files can be given as absolute paths, or as paths relative to the current working directory, which is generally either the workspace or project root.
The [ng generate](cli/generate) and [ng add](cli/add) commands take as an argument the artifact or library to be generated or added to the current project.
In addition to any general options, each artifact or library defines its own options in a *schematic*.
Schematic options are supplied to the command in the same format as immediate command options.