# Claude Clipboard Cleaner (Hammerspoon edition) - auto-strips trailing padding + leading 2-space indent from Claude Code terminal copies

> Source: <https://gist.github.com/spbavarva/d6e29e12d3fc8572b62c8523ffccc2a6>
> Published: 2026-06-21 15:37:29+00:00

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-- Claude Clipboard Cleaner (Hammerspoon edition) |
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-- Strips trailing-space padding and the leading 2-space indent that the |
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-- Claude Code terminal adds when you select-copy its output. |
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-- |
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-- Self-contained: drop this file anywhere and load it from ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua: |
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-- dofile("/Users/sneh/Downloads/planner/claude-clipboard-cleaner/claude-clipboard-cleaner.lua") |
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-- |
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-- It only rewrites the clipboard when the content clearly looks like Claude |
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-- terminal output (see the 50%/60% guards below), so copying normal text or |
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-- code from other apps is left untouched. |
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local M = {} |
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local POLL_INTERVAL = 0.3 -- seconds, same cadence as the original app |
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local enabled = true |
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local cleanCount = 0 |
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-- MARK: detection ---------------------------------------------------------- |
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-- 50%+ of non-empty lines end with 3+ trailing spaces. Normal text never |
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-- does this; it is unique to fixed-width terminal copy. |
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local function hasTrailingPadding(lines) |
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local padded, nonEmpty = 0, 0 |
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for _, line in ipairs(lines) do |
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if line ~= "" then |
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nonEmpty = nonEmpty + 1 |
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local trailing = #(line:match("(%s*)$") or "") |
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if trailing >= 3 then padded = padded + 1 end |
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end |
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end |
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if padded < 3 then return false end |
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return (padded / math.max(nonEmpty, 1)) >= 0.5 |
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end |
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-- 60%+ of non-empty lines start with exactly a 2-space indent. |
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local function hasLeadingTwoSpace(lines) |
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local matched, nonEmpty = 0, 0 |
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for _, line in ipairs(lines) do |
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if line ~= "" then |
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nonEmpty = nonEmpty + 1 |
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if line:sub(1, 2) == " " then matched = matched + 1 end |
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end |
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end |
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if nonEmpty == 0 then return false end |
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return (matched / nonEmpty) >= 0.6 |
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end |
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-- MARK: cleaning ----------------------------------------------------------- |
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local function cleanClaude(text) |
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if not text then return nil end |
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local lines = {} |
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for line in (text .. "\n"):gmatch("(.-)\n") do lines[#lines + 1] = line end |
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if #lines < 3 then return nil end |
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local stripTrailing = hasTrailingPadding(lines) |
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local stripLeading = hasLeadingTwoSpace(lines) |
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if not (stripTrailing or stripLeading) then return nil end |
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for i, line in ipairs(lines) do |
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if stripTrailing then line = line:gsub("%s+$", "") end |
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if line:sub(1, 2) == " " then line = line:sub(3) end |
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lines[i] = line |
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end |
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local out = table.concat(lines, "\n") |
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return out ~= text and out or nil |
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end |
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M.cleanClaude = cleanClaude -- exported so it can be unit-tested |
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-- MARK: clipboard watcher -------------------------------------------------- |
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local lastChange = hs.pasteboard.changeCount() |
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local timer = hs.timer.new(POLL_INTERVAL, function() |
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if not enabled then return end |
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local cc = hs.pasteboard.changeCount() |
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if cc == lastChange then return end |
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lastChange = cc |
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local text = hs.pasteboard.readString() |
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if not text then return end |
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local cleaned = cleanClaude(text) |
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if cleaned then |
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hs.pasteboard.setContents(cleaned) |
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lastChange = hs.pasteboard.changeCount() -- don't re-process our own write |
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cleanCount = cleanCount + 1 |
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if M.menu then M.menu:setTitle("⌘C ✓") end |
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hs.timer.doAfter(0.6, function() |
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if M.menu then M.menu:setTitle("⌘C") end |
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end) |
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end |
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end) |
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-- MARK: menu bar ----------------------------------------------------------- |
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M.menu = hs.menubar.new() |
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if M.menu then |
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M.menu:setTitle("⌘C") |
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M.menu:setTooltip("Claude Clipboard Cleaner") |
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local function buildMenu() |
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return { |
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{ title = "Cleaned: " .. cleanCount .. " copies", disabled = true }, |
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{ title = "-" }, |
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{ title = enabled and "Disable" or "Enable", fn = function() |
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enabled = not enabled |
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M.menu:setTitle(enabled and "⌘C" or "⌘C (off)") |
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end }, |
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{ title = "Reload config", fn = function() hs.reload() end }, |
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{ title = "-" }, |
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{ title = "About", fn = function() |
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hs.urlevent.openURL("https://gist.github.com/spbavarva/d6e29e12d3fc8572b62c8523ffccc2a6") |
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end }, |
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} |
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end |
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M.menu:setMenu(buildMenu) |
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end |
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timer:start() |
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hs.alert.show("Claude Clipboard Cleaner: on") |
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return M |