pe

README

pe

A tiny CLI snippet launcher for 「ぺっと貼る」.

pe means "ぺっと貼る" — copy a saved snippet and paste it instantly.

Concept

pe is not a text expander. pe is not a clipboard history manager. pe is a command-first snippet launcher: search, copy, and paste.

The name comes from Japanese ぺっと貼る (pe-tto haru, "paste it on"). Register frequently-used commands, prompts, URLs, and boilerplate under short keys, then call them up with a single command.

pe a claude "claude --dangerously-skip-permissions"
pe claude
# → copied: claude

Install

Linux / macOS — go install

pe is a single statically-linked Go binary. With Go 1.18+ on PATH:

go install github.com/Shin-R2un/pe/cmd/pe@latest

The binary lands at $(go env GOBIN) / $(go env GOPATH)/bin/pe (typically ~/go/bin/pe). Make sure that directory is on your PATH.

Windows — Scoop

scoop bucket add r2un https://github.com/Shin-R2un/scoop-bucket
scoop install r2un/pe

The same bucket also hosts kpot.

Pre-built binaries

Each tagged release ships archives for linux/macOS (amd64 + arm64) and windows (amd64) on the Releases page, along with a checksums.txt.

From source

git clone https://github.com/Shin-R2un/pe
cd pe
make build
./pe version

On multiple machines

pe's home is in ~/.pe/pe.json, so each machine has its own snippet set unless you point them all at the same dir:

export PE_DIR=~/dotfiles/pe   # everywhere — sync via Git/Dropbox/etc.

For headless servers reached over SSH, the OSC 52 fallback means pe copies to your local clipboard — no xclip/wl-copy needed on the remote. See OSC 52 over SSH/tmux.

Updating

Use the same channel you installed from:

Installed via	Update command
go install	pe update
Scoop	scoop update pe
Source	git pull && make install
Release zip	redownload the new release

pe update wraps go install github.com/Shin-R2un/pe/cmd/pe@latest, so it needs go on the target. It reports the old → new version when it finishes:

$ pe update
running: go install github.com/Shin-R2un/pe/cmd/pe@latest
updated: 0.2.0 → 0.3.0

If your machine is behind the public Go module proxy and you've just pushed a release, the proxy can return a stale 404 for ~30 minutes. Bypass it with:

GOPROXY=direct pe update

If the target has no go toolchain, pe update will tell you so — either install Go (https://go.dev/dl/) or scoop update pe on Windows, or grab a release binary from the Releases page.

Clipboard backend

pe first tries a native helper:

OS	Helper
macOS	pbcopy (built in)
Linux (Wayland)	wl-copy
Linux (X11)	xclip or xsel
WSL	the above, or clip.exe fallback
Windows	clip (built in)

If no native helper is found (typical on a headless box reached over SSH), pe falls back to OSC 52 — an escape sequence that the terminal emulator forwards to the local clipboard. See OSC 52 over SSH/tmux below.

PE_CLIP overrides the strategy:

Value	Behavior
(unset)	auto: native first, OSC 52 fallback (default)
native	only native; fail if absent
osc52	force OSC 52 (skip native helpers entirely)
none	no-op (useful for testing)

OSC 52 over SSH/tmux

Working on a remote machine over SSH and want pe to put the snippet on your local clipboard? pe can do that with no helper installed on the remote — it just emits the OSC 52 escape sequence and lets the terminal emulator handle it.

What you need:

1. A terminal emulator that supports OSC 52. WezTerm, iTerm2, kitty, Alacritty (with enable_kitty_keyboard = true not required for OSC 52 itself, but check the docs), Windows Terminal, modern xterm, etc. Most do, often by default.
2. If you're inside tmux, enable passthrough so tmux forwards the sequence to the outer terminal. Add to ~/.tmux.conf:

   set -g allow-passthrough on
   

   Then reload (tmux source-file ~/.tmux.conf) or restart tmux.
3. Test it:

   PE_CLIP=osc52 pe claude
   

   You should see copied: claude and the value should be on your local clipboard. If nothing pastes, recheck step 2 and the terminal's OSC 52 setting.

In auto mode, pe only falls back to OSC 52 when no native helper is available, so installing xclip on a workstation will silently take priority. Set PE_CLIP=osc52 if you want to force OSC 52 even when a local helper exists.

Quick Start

pe a claude "claude --dangerously-skip-permissions"
pe a codex  "codex --resume"
pe a clawd  "cd /mnt/s3vo/openclaw && claude"

pe claude          # copy & paste anywhere
pe l               # list snippets
pe s cla           # find by substring
pe ? claude        # show full contents
pe e claude        # edit in $EDITOR
pe d claude        # delete

pe                 # interactive fuzzy picker

Commands

Short	Long	Description
pe <key>	—	Copy snippet to clipboard
pe	—	Interactive search (fuzzy filter)
pe a K T	pe add K T	Add a snippet
pe l	pe list	List snippets (one line each)
pe s Q	pe search Q	Search by key / description / value / tag
pe ? K	pe show K	Show full contents of a snippet
pe e K	pe edit K	Edit a snippet in your $EDITOR
pe d K	pe delete K	Delete a snippet
pe completion <sh>	—	Print bash / zsh / fish tab-completion
pe update	—	Reinstall latest release via go install
pe help	pe -h / pe --help	Print usage
pe version	pe -v	Print version

Output is intentionally short:

$ pe a claude "claude --dangerously-skip-permissions"
added: claude

$ pe claude
copied: claude

$ pe d claude
deleted: claude

For unknown keys, pe shows a "did you mean" line listing the closest existing keys (prefix > substring > Levenshtein, top 3):

$ pe clude
not found: clude
did you mean: claude?

If nothing is close enough, it falls back to suggesting pe s:

$ pe nope
not found: nope
hint: try `pe s nope`

Tab completion

pe completion <shell> emits a completion script for bash, zsh, or fish. Once installed, Tab on pe <key> and pe e <key> / pe d <key> / pe ? <key> completes against your registered keys.

# zsh
mkdir -p ~/.zsh/completions
pe completion zsh > ~/.zsh/completions/_pe
# add to ~/.zshrc once:
#   fpath=(~/.zsh/completions $fpath)
#   autoload -Uz compinit && compinit

# bash
pe completion bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/pe

# fish
pe completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/pe.fish

Then reload your shell. pe cla<TAB> should expand to all keys starting with cla.

Editor for pe e

pe e <key> opens the snippet in your editor as JSON. Resolution order:

1. $PE_EDITOR (pe-specific override)
2. $VISUAL
3. $EDITOR
4. vi (Linux/macOS) / notepad (Windows)

If your global $VISUAL is set to something you don't want for pe (e.g. $VISUAL=nano but you want vim for code-like editing), set PE_EDITOR in your shell rc:

echo 'export PE_EDITOR=vim' >> ~/.zshrc

You can edit key, value, description, and tags. Metadata (createdAt, useCount, lastUsedAt) is preserved automatically.

Examples

# AI / agent commands
pe a claude  "claude --dangerously-skip-permissions"
pe a codex   "codex --resume"
pe a clawd   "cd /mnt/s3vo/openclaw && claude"

# Git
pe a rebase  "git fetch upstream && git rebase upstream/main"

# SSH
pe a vps     "ssh root@example.com"

# Frequently-pasted prompts
pe a review  "Please review this code for bugs and clarity:"
pe a fmtjp   "Translate the following to formal Japanese:"

# Long URLs
pe a docs    "https://docs.example.com/very/long/path"

Storage

Snippets live in a single JSON file:

• $PE_DIR/pe.json if PE_DIR is set, otherwise
• ~/.pe/pe.json (default).

File permissions are 0600, the directory 0700. The format is human-readable, grep-friendly, and easy to back up or sync via your preferred mechanism (Git, Dropbox, etc.). Format spec: docs/format.md.

PE_DIR=$HOME/dotfiles/pe pe l   # use a synced dotfiles dir

Security Notes

Do not store API keys, passwords, or tokens in pe. The snippet file is plain JSON on disk, mode 0600, but it is not encrypted. Use a secret manager such as kpot for credentials.

pe deliberately does not display snippet values during a copy operation, to reduce the risk of leaking long commands or prompts to your terminal scrollback / log files. Use pe ? <key> when you explicitly want to see the contents.

Roadmap

Likely next steps (not yet implemented):

• pe a <key> --editor for multi-line prompt registration
• pe a <key> -d "..." -t tag1,tag2 for description/tags via flags
• pe tag <tag> to filter by tag
• pe export / pe import for migration between machines
• pe stats / pe pin for usage-aware ordering
• richer fuzzy search in interactive mode (AND, regex, non-ASCII keys)

Out of scope (use a different tool):

• secret management → use kpot
• text expansion / shortcuts → use espanso, Alfred, etc.
• clipboard history → use cliphist, Maccy, etc.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.