clipboard-copy

name	clipboard-copy
description	Copy text to the system clipboard. Use when user asks to copy something to clipboard, copy to pasteboard, or wants to paste something.

Copy to Clipboard

When copying text to the clipboard on macOS, always use a heredoc with pbcopy. Never use printf or echo with escaped quotes as they break on apostrophes and special characters.

Correct Method

cat << 'EOF' | pbcopy
Your text here with apostrophes like it's and don't.
Special characters work fine: é, ü, ñ, quotes "like this".
Multiple lines work too.
EOF

Why Not printf or echo

# BAD - breaks on apostrophes, needs escaping, fragile
printf '%s' 'today'\''s meeting' | pbcopy

# BAD - same escaping problems
echo "He said \"hello\"" | pbcopy

# GOOD - heredoc with single-quoted delimiter preserves everything literally
cat << 'EOF' | pbcopy
today's meeting, "hello", it's all fine
EOF

Key Rules

1. Always use cat << 'EOF' | pbcopy (single quotes around EOF to prevent variable expansion)
2. Never escape apostrophes or quotes manually
3. Works for any text: emails, code, prose, unicode