02. Everyday Conversation and the Screen

Copy, transcript, and edit the prompt

Get text out of the TUI, or open a long draft in a real editor. Copy a reply, page the whole transcript, or edit the composer outside Matcha CLI — without sending anything.

Tool	What it moves	Mode
Mouse drag-select	Highlighted scrollback text → clipboard	Fullscreen (in-app mouse)
`/copy [N] [file]`	The Nth-latest assistant reply → clipboard or a file	Both
`/transcript` (alias `/log`)	The whole session → `$PAGER` as Markdown	Both
`/edit-prompt`	The composer → `$VISUAL` / `$EDITOR` / `vi`	Minimal only

In vim scrollback mode, y copies the selected block’s content and Y copies its metadata (for example the shell command). Those letters type into the prompt unless /vim-mode is on.

Clipboard delivery is unreliable over SSH and in some terminals (Apple Terminal is a common case). /copy always writes a backup file so the text is recoverable even when OSC 52 or the system clipboard fails.

Minimal mode has no interactive scrollback pane: older blocks have already scrolled into the terminal’s native history. /transcript is the honest “show me everything” for that surface, and it works in fullscreen too.

A long prompt is miserable to edit in a one-line composer. Minimal mode hands the draft to your editor. Fullscreen has no external-editor path; Ctrl+G is the tasks pane there.

Mouse drag-select

With mouse reporting on (fullscreen default):

Drag across scrollback text.
The selection is copied (a toast confirms, or names the backup path).
Hold Shift (or Fn) and drag if you need the terminal’s native select-and-copy instead.

/toggle-mouse-reporting (when enabled) turns capture off so the terminal owns click-drag.

`/copy`

/copy
/copy 2
/copy out.txt
/copy 2 ~/exports/last-reply.md

No args, or 1 → latest assistant reply to the clipboard.
A number N ≥ 1 → Nth-latest reply.
A path (first token not a number) → write the latest reply to that file. The rest of the line is the path, so spaces are allowed.
N plus a path → that reply to that file.
0 is an error.

Every copy is also written to a backup file: ~/.matcha/last-copy.txt by default. Confirmed copies toast Copied!. Unverified OSC 52 deliveries and clipboard-unreachable fallbacks name the backup path.

`/transcript`

/transcript

Alias: /log. Requires an active session.

Matcha CLI writes the current conversation to a temporary Markdown file and opens it in $PAGER (default less). The TUI suspends until the pager exits. Extra arguments are ignored.

This is the tool for “I cannot scroll back far enough in minimal.” It is not a session export to a kept file; that is /export.

`/edit-prompt`

/edit-prompt

Minimal only.

The slash pipeline clears the composer before the command runs, so typed /edit-prompt always starts from an empty draft. Saving replaces the draft without sending it. Saving an empty file clears it.

To edit an existing draft:

Ctrl+G in minimal (ordinary composer), or
command palette → "Edit Prompt in External Editor" (use this when the terminal reserves Ctrl+G).

That palette route refuses pasted, file-reference, or image chips without flattening them. Edit those attachments in the composer.

Editor resolution: $VISUAL, then $EDITOR, then vi. Values may include quoted arguments.