Transparent Pipe (tp)
March 24, 2026 · View on GitHub
This project is inspired by akavel/up.
tp is a terminal-based application that displays the result of commands at every keystroke.
It makes it easy to chain commands for tasks like text manipulation.
It provides two displays:
- The stdout of the last pipe.
- A live preview of the current command's result.
Installation
Homebrew (macOS / Linux):
brew install minefuto/tap/tp
AUR (Arch Linux):
yay -S tp-bin
Go:
go install github.com/minefuto/tp@latest
Keybindings
| Operation | Key |
|---|---|
| Move left (one char) | ← / Ctrl-B |
| Move right (one char) | → / Ctrl-F |
| Move left (one word) | Alt← / Alt-B |
| Move right (one word) | Alt→ / Alt-F |
| Move to beginning of line | Home / Ctrl-A |
| Move to end of line | End / Ctrl-E |
| Delete one char before the cursor | Backspace / Ctrl-H |
| Delete one char after the cursor | Delete / Ctrl-D |
| Delete one word before the cursor | Ctrl-W |
| Delete from the cursor to end of line | Ctrl-K |
| Delete entire line | Ctrl-U |
Sandbox
tp executes commands at every keystroke, so all preview commands run inside a sandbox that restricts file system access to read-only. This prevents destructive operations such as rm or any other write to the file system.
| OS | Sandbox mechanism | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| macOS | Apple Seatbelt (sandbox-exec) | sandbox-exec must be available |
| Linux | Landlock | Kernel with Landlock v3+ support |
tp will exit with an error if the required sandbox is not available.
Shell Integration
You can synchronize your shell's line buffer with tp's input field.
The following config enables zsh integration with the keybinding ctrl + |:
function transparent-pipe() {
BUFFER="$(tp -c "${BUFFER}|")"
CURSOR=$#BUFFER
}
zle -N transparent-pipe
bindkey "^|" transparent-pipe