Design the clipboard bridge between the mac and exe.dev VMs - #18
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Two flows: tmux copy-mode text to the mac clipboard (already works over OSC 52; drop the dead pbcopy pipe on Linux) and mac clipboard images into Claude Code inside remote tmux (pull on demand over a reverse ssh forward, launchd socket activation on the mac, a wl-paste shim on the VM). Records the probes that fixed the design and why clipfan was not adopted. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Eight tasks across both repos: the wl-paste shim and its test here, the launchd responder, plist, ssh include and tmux change upstream, the two PRs, and the post-merge rebuild. Every task carries its test, exact file contents, and expected output, so it can run task-by-task in fresh sessions. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude Code on Linux falls back to `wl-paste -l` and `wl-paste --type image/png` for ctrl+v once xclip fails without a display. The shim answers both by asking the mac through 127.0.0.1:2224, the port the mac's ssh config reverse-forwards into every exe.dev session, and declines every other call so text reads keep falling through. A python fake responder covers the protocol in test/clipboard-shim.test.sh. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Problem
Clipboard traffic between a mac running kitty and an exe.dev VM running tmux only works in one direction. Text highlighted in tmux copy-mode reaches the mac clipboard (OSC 52, already working). An image on the mac clipboard cannot be pasted into Claude Code running inside tmux on the VM: Claude Code on Linux shells out to
xclip/wl-paste, the VM has no display server, and tmux swallows the replies of every in-band terminal clipboard protocol.Motivation
Agent sessions run remotely in tmux, and a screenshot is the fastest way to show Claude a UI problem. Today that means scp games. exe.dev's gateway was verified to relay reverse ssh forwards, which opens a clean out-of-band path.
Proposed Solution
The VM half of the clipboard bridge, plus its design: the spec (
docs/superpowers/specs/2026-09-07-clipboard-bridge-design.md, in this PR's files), the implementation plan, andoverlay/bin/wl-paste, a shim that answers the two calls Claude Code makes on ctrl+v (-l,--type image/png) by asking the mac over127.0.0.1:2224, the port the mac's ssh config reverse-forwards into every*.exe.xyzsession. It declines every other call so text reads fall through. A python fake responder covers the protocol intest/clipboard-shim.test.sh, wired intotest/run.sh.The mac half (socket-activated launch agent, ssh include, tmux
ycleanup) is a separate PR onnonrational/dotfiles; this PR is useful only once that one is deployed, and harmless before it (the shim fails closed).Feedback
ControlPersistkeeps the master and its forward alive;ssh -O exit <vm>.exe.xyzends it early), any VM process can read the mac clipboard image on demand. Text is never served and the bridge has no write path. Is image-only exposure acceptable for the agent VM?teeline if ever needed.