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Hyperlinks (OSC 8)
ESC ] 8 ; params ; uri BELOSC 8 adds clickable hyperlinks to terminal output, similar to HTML anchor tags. The format is
ESC ] 8 ; params ; uri ST to start a link and ESC ] 8 ; ; ST to end it. Text between these markers becomes a clickable hyperlink.
The params field supports an id=value parameter that groups non-contiguous text into a single link — essential for links that span multiple lines or are broken by line wrapping. When the user hovers over any part of a multi-segment link with the same id, all segments highlight together.
Terminals typically render hyperlinks with an underline and open them in the default browser on click or Ctrl+click. Tools like ls --hyperlink=auto, gcc, and grep can emit OSC 8 links to file paths and URLs. Widely adopted across modern terminals including Ghostty, iTerm2, WezTerm, GNOME Terminal, and Windows Terminal.How this is testedautomated
Write an OSC 8 hyperlink (
Write an OSC 8 hyperlink (
ESC ] 8 ; ; url BEL text ESC ] 8 ; ; BEL) and verify the link is rendered.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 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 |