Paste

/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:

1. If the user included content in the prompt (pasted, or referenced from earlier in the conversation), use that.
2. Else, read clipboard: pbpaste
3. If both empty, ask the user what to paste.

Step 2 — Parse destination

| Invocation | Destination | |---|---| | /paste | plain (default) | | /paste plain | plain | | /paste slack | slack | | /paste notion | notion | | /paste twitter or /paste x | twitter | | /paste linkedin or /paste li | linkedin | | /paste email | email (plain) | | /paste email rich or /paste email html | email (rich/HTML) | | /paste github or /paste gh | github | | /paste markdown or /paste md | markdown render | | /paste html | 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:

1. Stop. Don't copy yet.
2. Report what was detected with the value masked (first 4 + last 4 chars only — e.g. sk-12...wxyz).
3. Ask: "Spotted [type] in the content. Continue, redact (replace with [REDACTED]), or abort?"
4. Default to abort if no clear answer.

Step 4 — Universal cleaning

Strip from the content:

• ANSI escape codes — \x1b\[[0-9;]*[a-zA-Z] and related (color codes, cursor movement, screen control)
• Box-drawing chars — ╭ ─ ╮ │ ╰ ╯ ╞ ╡ ╤ ╧ ┌ ┐ └ ┘ ├ ┤ ┬ ┴ ┼ ━ ┃ ┏ ┓ ┗ ┛ etc. Replace with simpler equivalents (-, |) or remove entirely depending on context.
• Terminal prompt artifacts — leading $ , > , ❯ , % , # (when first non-whitespace on a line that looks like a shell prompt)
• Carriage returns (\r) — replace with \n 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 pbcopy. | | email rich | Render to HTML, write to /tmp/paste-.html, open it in browser. Skip clipboard (the user copies from browser to preserve rich text). | | 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-.html, open it. Skip clipboard. |

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 makerskills:jab-hook and ~/.claude/memory/feedback_social_link_placement.md

Examples

/paste slack

→ Reads clipboard, strips ANSI, converts **bold** to *bold*, 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: sk-an...3kf9. Continue, redact, or abort?"

Composes with

• jab-hook — clean output for pasting into Typefully drafts when the MCP path doesn't fit; also enforces the link-placement rule for X/LinkedIn destinations
• social-fetch — clean a fetched post before quoting it in a draft or newsletter
• second-brain — paste output can be captured cleanly into raw/note-.md for future compilation
• watch-video — transcript / summary output often flows through paste for platform-specific reformatting

Notes on quality

• Secret detection runs first, always. Before any formatting or destination logic, paste scans for sk-*, AKIA*, xoxb-*, 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 *bold*; 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 (\033[31m 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 twitter or linkedin. 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.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: coreyhaines31
• Source: coreyhaines31/makerskills
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://maker-skills.com

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.