/paste — Clean content for any destination
Cleans terminal output (ANSI, box-drawing, prompt artifacts, etc.) and reformats per destination rules. Reads clipboard by default, writes back to clipboard + previews in chat.
Step 1 — Get the content
In order:
- If the user included content in the prompt (pasted, or referenced from earlier in the conversation), use that.
- Else, read clipboard:
- If both empty, ask the user what to paste.
Step 2 — Parse destination
| Invocation | Destination |
|---|
| plain (default) |
| plain |
| slack |
| notion |
| or | twitter |
| or | linkedin |
| email (plain) |
| or | email (rich/HTML) |
| or | github |
| or | markdown render |
| render to HTML file + open in browser |
If ambiguous, ask. Per-destination rules live in
references/destinations.md
.
Step 3 — Scan for secrets
Before any cleaning or copying, scan against patterns in
references/secret-patterns.md
.
If any match:
- Stop. Don't copy yet.
- Report what was detected with the value masked (first 4 + last 4 chars only — e.g. ).
- Ask: "Spotted [type] in the content. Continue, redact (replace with ), or abort?"
- Default to abort if no clear answer.
Step 4 — Universal cleaning
Strip from the content:
- ANSI escape codes — and related (color codes, cursor movement, screen control)
- Box-drawing chars —
╭ ─ ╮ │ ╰ ╯ ╞ ╡ ╤ ╧ ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ├ ┤ ┬ ┴ ┼ ━ ┃ ┏ ┓ ┗ ┛
- Terminal prompt artifacts — leading , , , , (when first non-whitespace on a line that looks like a shell prompt)
- Carriage returns () — replace with or delete
- Trailing whitespace per line
- Excess blank lines — collapse 3+ consecutive blank lines to 2
Step 5 — Apply destination rules
Read
references/destinations.md
and apply the relevant transform.
Step 6 — Output
| Destination | Output behavior |
|---|
| plain / slack / notion / twitter / linkedin / email / github | (a) Show preview in a code fence in chat. (b) Copy clean version to clipboard via . |
| email rich | Render to HTML, write to /tmp/paste-<timestamp>.html
|
| markdown | Render the cleaned markdown directly in chat (Claude Code renders it). Also copy raw markdown to clipboard. Offer: "Open as HTML too?" — if yes, write and open. |
| html | Render to HTML, write to /tmp/paste-<timestamp>.html
|
After output, report a one-line summary of what was cleaned (e.g., "Stripped 12 ANSI codes, 4 box-drawing chars, 1 prompt artifact. Character count: 248 / 280 (X).").
Length warnings
Twitter and LinkedIn have practical limits. the user said "let me trim" — don't refuse or auto-truncate.
- Twitter/X: warn if >280 chars. Note the overage.
- LinkedIn: warn if >400 chars (comfort line, not hard limit).
- Other destinations: no length warning.
URL handling for social destinations
If the content has URLs and destination is twitter or linkedin:
- Surface the URLs separately (don't include them in the body)
- Remind the user: links go in a first comment (LinkedIn) or reply (X), not the body
- See and
~/.claude/memory/feedback_social_link_placement.md
Examples
→ Reads clipboard, strips ANSI, converts
to
, copies to clipboard, shows preview.
/paste twitter
[pasted error log]
→ Uses pasted content (ignores clipboard), strips everything, warns at 412/280 chars, copies, asks if the user wants to trim or pick a different destination.
/paste html
[pasted markdown table]
→ Renders table as HTML, opens in browser. the user selects + copies into Notion/email with formatting preserved.
/paste
[pasted output with sk-anthropic-key in it]
→ Stops.
"Spotted what looks like an Anthropic API key: . Continue, redact, or abort?"Composes with
- — clean output for pasting into Typefully drafts when the MCP path doesn't fit; also enforces the link-placement rule for X/LinkedIn destinations
- — clean a fetched post before quoting it in a draft or newsletter
- — output can be captured cleanly into for future compilation
- — transcript / summary output often flows through for platform-specific reformatting
Notes on quality
- Secret detection runs first, always. Before any formatting or destination logic, scans for , , , JWT-shaped strings, and long-hex tokens. Prompts before proceeding on any hit. Better to false-positive occasionally than to leak a real key.
- Destination-aware transforms, not one-size-fits-all. Slack wants ; LinkedIn wants unicode-styled bold; email wants HTML. Same input, 9 different valid outputs. The destination flag is not optional.
- ANSI codes get stripped for every destination. Terminal escapes ( etc.) render as garbage everywhere except the source terminal.
- Character limits are enforced, not warnings. X at 280, LinkedIn at 3000, Twitter at 25000 — paste refuses to copy over-limit output and offers a trim strategy.
- Links go in first comments for social destinations — not the body. Enforced when destination is or . Documented in
~/.claude/memory/feedback_social_link_placement.md
- HTML destination opens in a browser tab, not the clipboard. Formatted tables + code blocks need a rendered surface to select-and-copy from with formatting preserved. Copying raw HTML to the clipboard produces garbage in Notion/email.