clipboard

BEFORE doing the actual work below, run this one-time check only when `CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT` is set:

if [ -n "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-}" ]; then
  node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/bin/check-broadcast"
fi

If the command produces output, the clipboard plugin was updated since the last time you saw the broadcast on this machine. Show the output verbatim in a markdown block, prefixed with one short sentence ("clipboard was updated; here is what changed."). Then continue with the rest of this skill.

If the command produces no output, say nothing about updates and proceed.

The helper writes the sentinel only when stdout was non-empty, so a silent run does not mark the version as seen. In agents that do not set CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT the broadcast is intentionally skipped; that is the guard's purpose, not an oversight.

Clipboard

Copy the core content of your last answer to the macOS clipboard via clipboard-copy (the helper that invokes pbcopy and pbcopy-html under the hood). No confirmation, no explanation. Just copy.

Arguments

Argument	Effect
(none)	Plain text via clipboard-copy (wraps pbcopy)
slack	Rich text (HTML) via clipboard-copy --html (wraps pbcopy-html). Inline code, bold, and lists render correctly when pasted into Slack. Tables are converted to ASCII in a <pre> block (Slack does not support HTML tables)

Workflow

1. Identify the core of your last substantive answer, the useful content, not the meta-communication around it. If the last answer was itself a clipboard action, login, or other meta-operation, look further back for the last answer with actual content
2. Determine the content type (see table)
3. Check the argument: slack → generate HTML and use clipboard-copy --html (see section "Slack mode"). No argument → plain text via clipboard-copy
4. Format and copy
5. Confirm briefly what was copied (type + first few words)

Content Type Detection

Type	Recognition	Formatting
JSON	JSON object/array in answer	Pretty-printed JSON, leave intact
Code	Literal source, commands, or JSON in a code block (NOT prose/a prompt that merely happens to be fenced)	Exact code without markdown fences
Command	Shell command(s)	Commands, one per line
Email/letter	Salutation, sign-off, formal tone	Paragraphs separated by double newline
Slack/chat	Informal tone, short message	Continuous text, single newlines between paragraphs
List	Enumeration, bullet points	Preserve list formatting with - prefix
Explanation/prose	Running text, explanation	Continuous paragraphs, double newline between paragraphs
Table	Table data in answer	GitHub-flavored markdown table with `---

Mixed content: When an answer contains code blocks with surrounding explanation, "Code" always wins over "Explanation/prose". The user wants to copy the code, not read the explanation in another window. Copy only the code blocks, leave the prose out.

"Code wins" decides which content to copy, not whether to preserve wrapping. A fenced block that is actually a prompt, an email, or instructions is prose, not Code: copy it (it is the core content) and reflow its hard wraps per the reflow rule above. Only literal source/commands/JSON stay byte-for-byte.

Formatting Rules

Reflow hard-wrapped prose (the whole point of clipboard)

The reason to call clipboard is to get pure, re-flowable content. Hard line breaks in the middle of a sentence (the ~70-80 char wrapping Claude Code adds to its output, or manual wrapping you put in a fenced block) paste as ugly mid-sentence breaks in any target that does its own wrapping (chat, GitHub, docs, a prompt field). Collapse them.

• Within a paragraph: join the wrapped lines into one continuous line. Let the target wrap. Do not preserve the source line width.
• Between paragraphs: keep exactly one blank line.
• Never reflow where the newline is meaningful: code, commands, JSON, ASCII diagrams, ASCII tables, and list items keep their line breaks exactly. Reflow only running-prose blocks; a single answer can mix both (reflow the prose, preserve the diagram).

A block being shown inside a ``` fence is NOT a reason to preserve its wrapping. The fence is a display choice in the chat, not a signal about the content. If the fenced text is a prompt, an email, instructions, or any prose (not literal source/commands/JSON), reflow it exactly like prose. This is the most common miss: copying a fenced prompt verbatim drags every hard wrap into the paste.

Cleaning up terminal artefacts

Claude Code output often contains:

• Newlines with leading spaces (terminal wrapping)
• Markdown formatting (**bold**, `code`, ### headers)
• Bullet points as - or *

Always remove:

• Markdown bold/italic markers (**, *, _)
• Markdown header markers (#, ##, etc.)
• Leading/trailing whitespace per line

Keep:

• Inline code backticks (`technical terms` always stay)
• Structural newlines (paragraph breaks, list items)
• Indentation that belongs to the content type (code, JSON)

Per type

JSON: Use jq . formatting. No extra processing.

Code: Exact code from the code block. No markdown fences. With multiple blocks: separate with one blank line.

Command: Only the command itself, no explanation. Multiple commands on separate lines.

Email/letter: Plain text with paragraphs. No markdown. Double newline between paragraphs.

Slack/chat: Continuous text. Single newline only at a real paragraph break. No unnecessary line breaks.

Explanation/prose: Continuous paragraphs. No bullets unless the original structure requires it. Merge terminal line-wrapping into continuous sentences.

Table: GitHub-flavored markdown with pipe-formatting and ---|---|--- separator between header and body. Pasteable in GitHub issues, PRs, Notion, Slack (with GFM support).

Copying

The clipboard-copy helper lives in this plugin's bin/ directory and is not on $PATH. In Claude Code the plugin root is ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}; in another agent, resolve the plugin root from where this skill file was loaded (two directories up) and substitute it. The helper always points at the active install, so there is no stale-cache or uninstalled-plugin failure mode to defend against.

Default (plain text)

Use a heredoc to avoid formatting issues:

"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/bin/clipboard-copy" <<'CLIPBOARD'
[content here]
CLIPBOARD

Note: <<'CLIPBOARD' (single quotes) is literal; variables, command substitution, and backticks are not expanded. This is usually what you want. Only use <<"CLIPBOARD" (double quotes) when you explicitly want $VAR, $(...) or backticks to be evaluated; then content with literal $, ` or \ must be escaped. Choose the heredoc variant that requires the least escaping for the specific content.

Slack mode

When the slack argument is provided, generate HTML instead of plain text and call clipboard-copy --html:

"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/bin/clipboard-copy" --html <<'CLIPBOARD'
[HTML content here]
CLIPBOARD

clipboard-copy --html passes the HTML through pbcopy-html.swift, which places it on the clipboard as rich text (via NSPasteboard). Slack picks this up and renders formatting correctly. A plain text fallback (HTML tags stripped) is also included for apps that do not support rich text.

Do not regress to mrkdwn plain text

The slack argument exists specifically to produce rich text. If you are tempted to switch this back to Slack-native mrkdwn syntax (single-asterisk *bold*, • bullets, triple-backtick tables) because rich text paste feels unreliable somewhere, do not. That regression has been made before and reverted. The user has explicitly stated that rich text is the entire point of slack: bold must paste as bold, not as the literal characters *bold*. The frontmatter description ("for rich text") and the plugin description in plugin.json ("pbcopy-html for Slack rich text") are load-bearing, not stale text.

Plain-text mrkdwn does survive consistently across Slack desktop, web, and mobile, but that consistency was a worse-of-both: a user who reads the pasted message before sending sees *bold* instead of bold formatting. The user does not want that. If a specific HTML construct genuinely renders worse than its mrkdwn equivalent in some Slack client, narrow the fix to that construct (alternative HTML element, ASCII fallback, narrower wrapper); do not flip the whole mode back to plain text.

Markdown to HTML conversion

Convert the content to HTML before passing it to clipboard-copy --html:

Markdown	HTML
`code`	<code>code</code>
**bold**	<b>bold</b>
*italic* or _italic_	<i>italic</i>
- list item	<li>list item</li> (in <ul>)
1. numbered	<li>numbered</li> (in <ol>)
Empty line	<br><br>
Line break	<br> (newlines in HTML source are ignored by rich text paste, ALWAYS use <br> for line breaks)
[text](url)	<a href="url">text</a>
Special characters	NEVER escape with HTML entities (&amp;, &gt;, &lt;, &quot;). Many apps (Slack, Notion, Teams) render entities literally on rich text paste: &gt; appears as the text ">" instead of ">". Write &, >, < directly. Only escape when the character would break an HTML tag (e.g. < immediately before a letter).

Do NOT wrap the full content in <html> or <body> tags. Rich text paste expects HTML fragments, not complete documents.

Tables in Slack mode

Slack does NOT support <table> HTML elements. A <table> is flattened to unreadable text without structure.

NEVER use <table>, <tr>, <th>, or <td> tags in Slack mode.

Convert tables to ASCII format in a <pre> block. Slack renders <pre> as a monospace code block, keeping columns neatly aligned.

<pre>
Requirement                    | Current state           | Gap
-------------------------------|-------------------------|---------------------------
Load management at panel level | SensorMaxPowerLimiter   | Depends on sensor data
Priority per user profile      | Planner on departure    | Concept does not exist
</pre>

Rules for ASCII tables in <pre>:

• Columns separated by | (space-pipe-space)
• Header separated from body by ---...|---... line
• Column width: pad with spaces so pipes align vertically
• No HTML tags inside <pre> (no <code>, <b>, etc.)

Example

Markdown content:

De job is goed uitgevoerd. Alle platforms uit `PLATFORM_TIMEOUTS` zijn **volledig** backfilled.

Becomes:

"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/bin/clipboard-copy" --html <<'CLIPBOARD'
De job is goed uitgevoerd. Alle platforms uit <code>PLATFORM_TIMEOUTS</code> zijn <b>volledig</b> backfilled.
CLIPBOARD

Confirmation

After copying, confirm with one line:

[type] copied: "[first ~30 characters]..."

Examples:

• JSON copied: "{"name":"my-project","vers..."
• Code copied: "def calculate_price(kwh..."
• Slack message copied: "Hey team, de deploy van..."
• Table copied (slack/rich text): "De job is goed uitgev..."

Looking back past meta-answers

If the immediately preceding answer has no copyable core (clipboard confirmation, login, skill invocation), look further back in the conversation. "Last answer" means the last answer with substantive content, not necessarily the chronologically last one.

Nothing to copy

Only when there is no copyable content anywhere in the recent conversation (e.g. session just started, only questions asked), report briefly:

No copyable content found in the conversation.