OSC 8 — Hyperlinks

Sequence	OSC 8 ; <params> ; <uri> ST then text then OSC 8 ; ; ST
Category	OSC
Otty support	✓ Implemented

Description

Wraps a span of text in a clickable hyperlink. The link target stays attached to the cells until they're overwritten — so a hyperlinked path stays clickable as it scrolls through the buffer.

The closing sequence (OSC 8 ; ; ST) is required, with empty params and empty URI.

Parameters

The <params> field is a colon-separated key=value list. The only standard key today:

Key	Meaning
id	Optional identifier to group adjacent hyperlinked cells

Unknown keys are ignored.

Example

# Print "click me" as a hyperlink to example.com
printf '\e]8;;https://example.com\e\\click me\e]8;;\e\\\n'

# With an explicit id (groups multi-cell links across line wraps)
printf '\e]8;id=42;https://example.com\e\\click me\e]8;;\e\\\n'

# Common usage: emit a clickable file:// URL with a line number
file="/Users/me/project/src/lib.rs"
printf '\e]8;;file://%s#42\e\\%s:42\e]8;;\e\\\n' "$file" "$file"

In Otty, the resulting text is underlined and styled as a link; ⌘click opens the target. The hyperlink is independent of path detection — OSC 8 is explicit, path detection is automatic.

Try it

otty features try hyperlink — paints three sample links covering https://, alternate URL, and mailto:. ⌘click to open.

Notes

• ST (string terminator) may be ESC \ or BEL. Both are accepted.
• A new OSC 8 ; without first closing the previous link replaces it on subsequent cells.
• Links survive scrolling into history.

Common emitters

• git (recent versions) — emits OSC 8 for refs in some pagers.
• ls --hyperlink=auto (GNU coreutils)
• Build tools and CI loggers that link to source / dashboards.

Related

• Files and Links — path auto-detection (no OSC 8 needed).
• Hint Mode — keyboard-only equivalent of ⌘click.