About clip
The story behind the project, architecture philosophy, and contributors.
The Problem
Copying and pasting text in terminal environments is something software engineers do dozens of times per day. Yet, the native tools are cumbersome:
- On X11:
xclip -selection clipboard -iorxsel --clipboard --input. - On Wayland:
wl-copyandwl-paste. - On macOS:
pbcopyandpbpaste. - On Windows / WSL:
clip.exe.
Remembering disparate flags or maintaining separate aliases across desktop workstations, laptops, and virtual environments is frustrating.
The Solution
clip was created by Joshua Cox with a simple ethos: typing clipboard operations should be as fast and intuitive as typing cat or ls.
By analyzing the active desktop session ($WAYLAND_DISPLAY, $DISPLAY) and available system binaries, clip automatically routes your data to the right place without requiring explicit configuration.
Design Principles
Zero Dependencies
Built as a pure POSIX shell script. Runs out-of-the-box on minimal container and embedded systems without installing heavy runtimes.
Fail-Safe Input
Validates input files, flags, and terminal pipes upfront so commands fail quickly and safely with descriptive errors to stderr.
Contributing & Source Code
Contributions, bug reports, and pull requests are welcomed on GitHub: