tabby-paste-image

Paste screenshots straight into terminal AI tools. Copy an image, hit paste, and a CLI like Claude Code or kiro-cli chat can immediately read it — no saving files, no scp, no X11 forwarding, no fiddling with paths.

A Tabby plugin that makes paste image-aware. When the clipboard holds an image, it saves the image and types its file path into the input line (single-quoted, ready to pass to any tool); with text on the clipboard, paste works as usual. It just works across sessions:

• SSH tab → uploads the image to the remote host over SFTP and types the remote path. Because it reads the local clipboard, it never touches remote X11 — no more Could not connect to the X server.
• Local shell / any other tab → writes the image to a local temp file and types that path.

How it works

Tabby's built-in paste only handles clipboard text. This plugin wraps every tab's paste() and, when it finds an image instead, takes over:

1. Image? No → fall through to normal text paste.
2. Save it as PNG. SSH tab → upload via SFTP to the remote host; otherwise → write to a local temp file.
3. Type the path into the input line, ready to use.

"Image" means actual image data on the clipboard (a screenshot, or a copied image), regardless of its original format — it's always saved as PNG. Copying an image file in a file manager doesn't count: that puts a file reference on the clipboard, not image data, so paste falls through to text.

Install

In Tabby, open Settings → Plugins, search for paste-image, click Install, and restart Tabby. That's it.

Install into Tabby's plugins directory, then restart Tabby:

cd "$HOME/Library/Application Support/tabby/plugins"   # macOS
npm install tabby-paste-image

Plugins directory on other platforms — Linux: ~/.config/tabby/plugins · Windows: %APPDATA%\tabby\plugins

Build (from source)

npm install        # Angular 15 / tabby-* peers resolve cleanly, no flags needed
npm run build      # production bundle -> dist/index.js

During development, use npm run watch to rebuild automatically.

Local install from source (macOS)

Tabby loads plugins from the node_modules folder inside its plugins directory. Place this project there (a symlink is recommended — after npm run build, just restart Tabby):

# Plugins directory (macOS)
PLUGINS_DIR="$HOME/Library/Application Support/tabby/plugins/node_modules"

mkdir -p "$PLUGINS_DIR"
ln -sfn "$HOME/tabby-paste-image" "$PLUGINS_DIR/tabby-paste-image"

Plugins directory on other platforms:

• Linux: ~/.config/tabby/plugins/node_modules
• Windows: %APPDATA%\tabby\plugins\node_modules

Then fully quit and restart Tabby. Once loaded, the plugin wraps the paste action on all terminal tabs.

Tip: npm link also works, but Tabby only scans the node_modules under its plugins directory, so the symlink approach above is the most direct.

Usage

1. Take a screenshot to the clipboard locally (macOS: Ctrl+Cmd+Shift+4 — note the Ctrl is what copies to the clipboard).
2. Paste in any tab — SSH or local (right-click / middle-click / hotkey all work).
3. The plugin saves the image and the path appears in the input line, e.g.:

   '/tmp/paste-img/lm4k2p9.png'

   The path is wrapped in single quotes so it stays safe when passed to a shell/CLI. In an SSH tab this is the remote path; in a local tab it's a local file.
4. Hand that path to the tool, e.g. in kiro-cli chat: "take a look at this image ".

Tabby shows a notification in the bottom-right corner (Uploading pasted image… / Image uploaded: … for SSH, Image saved: … for local).

Images land in paste-img/ under /tmp (macOS/Linux) or %TEMP% (Windows), named by timestamp.

Project structure

tabby-paste-image/
├── package.json          # keywords includes "tabby-plugin", main: dist/index.js
├── tsconfig.json
├── webpack.config.js     # target:node, umd; externals include tabby-*/@angular/rxjs/electron
└── src/
    ├── index.ts          # @NgModule, registers the TerminalDecorator provider
    ├── decorator.ts      # ImagePasteDecorator: wraps paste(), SFTP upload (SSH) or local save + emits path
    └── bufferUpload.ts   # BufferFileUpload: adapts an in-memory PNG buffer to FileUpload

License

MIT