Features›Erase›Erase screen (ED 2)

Erase screen (ED 2)

Category: erase · Baseline: core · Tags: ECMA-48 Standard, VT100 · Specification ↗

ESC [ 2 J

ED 2 erases the entire visible screen. The sequence is ESC [ 2 J. The cursor position is not changed. Does not affect the scrollback buffer — use ED 3 to clear scrollback.

How this is testedautomated
Write three lines, send \x1b[2J (ED 2), verify all visible content is cleared.

The same probe runs against headless backends (via Termless) and real terminal apps (via a daemon launched in each terminal). This lets us distinguish parser correctness from rendering correctness.

Analysis2026-04-06

Supported by 11 of 12 terminals (92%). Not supported by: Alacritty. Part of the Core TUI baseline. Notes: Alacritty: Alacritty's ED 2 doesn't clear scrollback content from buffer.

Supported by 12 of 14 backends (86%)

Terminal Applications

Terminal	Version	Support	Notes
iTerm2	3.6.9	✓ yes
Ghostty	1.3.1	✓ yes
VS Code		✓ yes
Warp		✓ yes
Cursor		✓ yes
Terminal.app		✓ yes

Headless Backends

Parser correctness only — a ✓ means the parser accepts the sequence.

Backend	Version	Support	Notes
Kitty	0.40.0	✓ yes
vt100.js	0.2.1	✓ yes
vterm	0.2.0	✓ yes
WezTerm	0.1.0-fork.5	✓ yes
xterm.js	5.5.0	✓ yes
Alacritty	0.26.0	✗ no	Alacritty's ED 2 doesn't clear scrollback content from buffer

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