CLI reference

yank is built to sit beside pbcopy, pbpaste and xclip in a pipeline, not to replace them.

Commands

Reference

yank list [-n N] [--json]        newest first (default 20)
yank get <N|id:ID>               print one clip to stdout
yank copy [TEXT]                 stdin or TEXT -> clipboard + history
yank search <QUERY> [--json]     full-text search
yank pin <N> | unpin <N>
yank register <a-z> [N]          bind a clip, or print the bound one
yank stats
yank journal [--tail N]

Composition

It is a Unix tool

yank get 3 | pbcopy
pbpaste | yank copy
git rev-parse HEAD | yank copy
yank list --json | jq -r '.[].preview' | fzf | yank copy

Conventions

Text on stdout, JSON only behind --json. A tool that prints JSON by default is not a Unix tool.
No trailing newline from get, so yank get 1 | pbcopy does not add one.
Exit codes mean something: 0 found, 1 not found, 2 usage.
Every clip prints in full. Detected credentials are flagged with ! in list and search; nothing is masked or withheld.

It reads the encrypted vault directly, so it works whether or not the app is running. Indexes are positions in the current list; id:42 addresses a stable row.