Clean Copy

Clean Copy

Clean a draft from the conversation (or a pasted/file source) and copy it to the clipboard, formatted for a specific platform. The goal: a paste that looks right in Gmail / Slack / LinkedIn on the first try, with zero manual cleanup.

Preferences

Before starting, use the Read tool to read ~/.claude/skills/clean-copy/preferences.md. If the file does not exist, treat as "no preferences set" and use defaults below.

Defaults:

• default-platform: gmail
• default-source: last (most recent assistant draft in the conversation)
• reflow-paragraphs: true (rewrap soft-wrapped paragraphs into single lines)
• bullet-style: - (preserve as-is)
• preview-after-copy: true (show first 12 lines + char count)

Command routing

Check $ARGUMENTS:

• help → display help, stop
• config → interactive setup, stop
• reset → delete ~/.claude/skills/clean-copy/preferences.md, confirm, stop
• anything else (including empty) → run the skill

Help

Clean Copy — Clean terminal-formatted text and copy to clipboard for a target platform

Usage:
  /clean-copy <platform>            Clean latest draft, format, pbcopy
  /clean-copy                       Use default platform from preferences
  /clean-copy config                Set defaults (default platform, reflow, etc.)
  /clean-copy reset                 Clear preferences
  /clean-copy help                  This help

Platforms:
  gmail        Plain prose, bullets as "- ", no markdown rendering
  slack        Slack mrkdwn: *bold*, _italic_, `code`, > quotes
  linkedin     Plain prose, no markdown (LinkedIn strips it), short paragraphs
  plain        Strip all markdown, just clean prose
  markdown     Preserve markdown, only clean terminal whitespace

Options:
  --source last         Latest assistant draft in conversation (default)
  --source paste        Prompt the user to paste the source text
  --source file:<path>  Read source from a file
  --no-reflow           Keep hard line breaks as-is (don't unwrap paragraphs)
  --preview             Show full cleaned text before copying

Examples:
  /clean-copy gmail                    Clean my last draft for Gmail compose
  /clean-copy slack                    Format for Slack mrkdwn
  /clean-copy linkedin --no-reflow     Keep my line breaks (poetry / structured posts)
  /clean-copy plain --source paste     I'll paste the messy text after invocation
  /clean-copy markdown --source file:/tmp/draft.md

Current preferences:
  (loaded from preferences.md, or defaults shown above)

Config

Use AskUserQuestion to collect:

• Q1: Default platform — gmail, slack, linkedin, plain, or markdown. The platform used when /clean-copy is invoked with no platform arg.
• Q2: Reflow paragraphs by default? — Yes (recommended for prose) or No (preserve hard line breaks). Reflow joins soft-wrapped lines into single paragraphs separated by blank lines.
• Q3: Bullet style — - (keep as written), • (convert to bullet glyph), or * (asterisk). Affects how list items render after cleaning.
• Q4: Preview after copy? — Yes (show first 12 lines + char count) or No (silent except for "Copied").

Save to ~/.claude/skills/clean-copy/preferences.md in this format:

# /clean-copy preferences
Updated: <date>

## Defaults
- default-platform: gmail
- reflow-paragraphs: true
- bullet-style: -
- preview-after-copy: true

## Learned
- (patterns observed silently, e.g., "user always picks slack on weekdays mornings")

Reset

Delete ~/.claude/skills/clean-copy/preferences.md and confirm: "Preferences cleared. Using defaults."

First-time detection

If no preferences file exists, show:

First time using /clean-copy? Run /clean-copy config to set defaults, or just continue — defaults are gmail / reflow on / dash bullets.

Then proceed.

Workflow

Step 1 — Resolve platform

Parse $ARGUMENTS:

• If a platform keyword (gmail, slack, linkedin, plain, markdown) is present, use it.
• Otherwise, fall back to default-platform from preferences (or gmail).
• If still unclear AND the source text strongly hints (e.g., starts with "Hi all," → email; starts with "@channel" → slack), pick that and mention it: "Detected gmail-style draft, formatting for Gmail."

Step 2 — Resolve source

Check for --source flag in $ARGUMENTS:

• last (default) — pick the most recent assistant message in the conversation that looks like a finished draft (prose body of >40 words, not a meta reply about the skill itself). Do NOT pick a user message; the user's invocation message is not the source. If no clear draft is found, fall back to paste mode.
• paste — ask the user via AskUserQuestion or plain prompt: "Paste the text you want cleaned and copied. Send it as your next message."
• file:<path> — read the file at <path> with the Read tool. If it doesn't exist, abort with a clear error.

If multiple plausible drafts are in the conversation, pick the most recent one and say "Using your most recent draft (~N words). Run /clean-copy <platform> --source paste to override."

Step 3 — Clean (platform-agnostic)

Apply these passes in order. Each pass is non-destructive of meaning — only whitespace and terminal artifacts.

1. Normalize line endings — convert \r\n and \r to \n.
2. Strip box-drawing artifacts — terminal renderers sometimes inject │, ─, ┃, or trailing block characters at the right edge. Drop them.
3. Detect and strip uniform leading indent (the "terminal padding" pass):
   • Look at substantive lines only — non-blank lines longer than 20 characters that aren't inside a fenced code block. (This excludes short greetings like "Hi all," which often have 0 indent even when the body is indented.)
   • Find the mode (most common count) of leading spaces across those substantive lines. If the mode is >0, that's the terminal-injected padding.
   • Strip up to that many leading spaces from every line (lines with fewer leading spaces just lose what they have — never go negative).
   • Inside fenced code blocks, do not touch indentation — code's leading whitespace is meaningful.
4. Strip trailing whitespace on every line.
5. Collapse runs of blank lines — 3+ blank lines → 2 blank lines (one paragraph break).
6. Drop terminal padding artifacts — lines that contain only whitespace + terminal-injected glyphs become empty.

Step 4 — Reflow (optional, default on)

If --no-reflow is set OR the source contains fenced code blocks where line breaks matter, skip this step for those sections.

For prose paragraphs, rejoin soft-wrapped lines:

• A soft wrap is detected when a line ends without sentence-ending punctuation (., !, ?, :, ;, …) AND the next line exists, is non-empty, is not a list item (-, *, 1.), is not a heading (#), and is not blockquote (>).
• Join soft-wrapped lines with a single space.
• Preserve paragraph breaks (a blank line) verbatim.
• Preserve list item structure — each list item stays on its own line; if a list item itself has a soft-wrapped continuation, join those into the same item.

This is the most important pass for terminal output: a paragraph wrapped at 80 columns becomes one long line, which Gmail / Slack / LinkedIn will then re-wrap correctly for their own width.

Step 5 — Format for platform

Apply platform-specific transforms after cleaning:

gmail (rich compose, but markdown is NOT rendered):

• Strip markdown emphasis: **bold** → bold, *italic* → italic, __bold__ → bold, _italic_ → italic.
• Headings: # H1 / ## H2 → drop the #s and surrounding hashes; keep the text on its own line. Do NOT bold (Gmail won't render).
• Bullets: keep as - item (Gmail compose recognizes and renders these as proper bullets when you press Enter inside the editor on the next line; pasting - lines is fine).
• Code blocks: drop the fence markers ```, keep content as-is (monospace is lost, that's expected).
• Inline code: `code` → code (drop backticks).
• Links: [text](url) → text (url) so the URL is visible.

slack (mrkdwn — different from CommonMark):

• **bold** → *bold* (single asterisk).
• *italic* or _italic_ → _italic_.
• ~~strike~~ → ~strike~.
• Headings # H1 → *H1* on its own line (slack has no real headings; bold is the convention).
• Bullets: keep as - item or convert to • item per bullet-style preference. Slack renders both.
• > quote lines kept as-is (slack renders them).
• Inline code and code blocks (```) kept as-is — Slack supports them.
• Links: [text](url) → <url|text> (slack format).

linkedin (no markdown rendering, anywhere):

• Strip all markdown: emphasis, headings, code fences, inline code backticks.
• Bullets: keep as - item lines (LinkedIn doesn't auto-format but plain dashes are conventional).
• Links: [text](url) → text: url (or just url on its own line if text is the same).
• Keep paragraphs short — if reflow joined a paragraph into >400 chars, split at the nearest sentence boundary near 250 chars. (LinkedIn has its own truncation.)

plain:

• Strip ALL markdown completely (emphasis, headings, code fences/inline backticks, links → just text).
• Bullets: keep as - item.
• Output is pure text — pastes the same way into anything.

markdown:

• No platform transforms. Markdown is preserved exactly. Only the cleaning passes (Step 3) and optional reflow (Step 4) are applied.

Step 6 — Write and copy

1. Write the cleaned, formatted text to /tmp/clean-copy-output.txt using the Write tool. Use the Write tool, not echo, to avoid quoting issues with special characters in the draft.
2. Pipe through pbcopy via Bash: pbcopy < /tmp/clean-copy-output.txt
3. Verify by running pbpaste | wc -c and confirm the byte count is non-zero and roughly matches the source.

Step 7 — Report

If preview-after-copy is true (default) OR --preview flag is set:

✓ Copied to clipboard — formatted for {platform} ({char_count} chars, {line_count} lines)

{first 12 lines of cleaned output}
...

Source: {last assistant draft / pasted / file:path} Cleaning: stripped {N}-space indent, reflowed {M} soft wraps, dropped {K} trailing-whitespace lines

If preview is off, just:

✓ Copied for {platform} ({char_count} chars).

Step 8 — Learn

Watch for silent corrections:

• User invokes /clean-copy (no platform), then immediately reruns with a specific platform → save that as the new default-platform.
• User adds --no-reflow two times in a row → flip reflow-paragraphs to false.
• User runs /clean-copy plain repeatedly when their default is gmail → consider suggesting a default change after 3 occurrences.

When something is learned, mention it once: "Noted: you've picked slack three times in a row — want me to make that the default? (/clean-copy config to change.)"

Principles

• Clipboard-first — the whole point is pbcopy. Always end with a fresh clipboard the user can paste immediately. Never just print.
• Don't change meaning, only formatting — never rephrase, summarize, or "improve" the draft. Cleaning is whitespace + platform syntax conversion only.
• Reflow is the killer feature — terminal output's biggest sin is hard wraps at 80 columns. Reflowing soft-wrapped paragraphs into single lines is what makes Gmail and Slack render the draft correctly.
• Preserve code and lists faithfully — fenced code blocks and list structure must survive untouched. Reflow stops at code fences and list items.
• One clean source of truth — write cleaned text to /tmp/clean-copy-output.txt first, then pbcopy from the file. Avoids quoting hell from inline shell strings with quotes / backticks / unicode.
• No surprises — if the source is ambiguous (multiple drafts in conversation, or "is this a draft?") say which one you picked and how to override. Never silently pick wrong.