OSC 8 — Hyperlinks (clickable links in terminal output)

OSC 8 marks a run of text as a clickable hyperlink: OSC 8 ; params ; URI ST link text OSC 8 ; ; ST. The opening sequence carries the target URI (and optional params like id=...); the closing sequence has empty params and empty URI to end the link. Specified by the Gnome VTE 'hyperlinks' proposal and supported across most modern terminals.

aka: terminal hyperlinks · clickable links · OSC 8 · ESC ] 8 · hyperlinks in terminal emulators

frame

OSC introducer: \x1b] ESC ] (0x1B 0x5D)

terminator (ST|BEL): ST \x1b\ · BEL \x07

parameters / subcommands

id	name	bytes (ST)	meaning
open	Open hyperlink	\x1b]8;;https://example.com\x1b\	OSC 8 ; params ; URI ST begins a hyperlink. params is a possibly-empty list of key=value pairs separated by ':' (the only standardized key is 'id', used to group multi-line links). URI is the target (e.g. https://..., file://...). The text printed AFTER this sequence and BEFORE the closing sequence is the clickable link text.
close	Close hyperlink	\x1b]8;;\x1b\	OSC 8 ; ; ST (empty params AND empty URI) ends the current hyperlink. Text after this is no longer part of the link.

support matrix

terminal	level	since	notes
VTE / GNOME Terminal	full	VTE 0.50 (2017)	Reference implementation; the spec originated here.
iTerm2	full	3.1+	Supports OSC 8 explicit hyperlinks.
kitty	full	documented	Full support including id= grouping; configurable open action.
WezTerm	full	documented	Documents the explicit OSC 8 hyperlink escape plus implicit/auto-link rules.
Windows Terminal	full	1.4+	Renders OSC 8 hyperlinks as clickable.
foot	full	documented	Supports OSC 8 hyperlinks.
Contour	full	documented	Supports OSC 8 hyperlinks.
Ghostty	full	1.0	Supports OSC 8 hyperlinks.
Terminal.app (macOS)	none	n/a	Apple Terminal does not implement OSC 8; the link text renders but is not clickable.

gotchas

The CLOSING sequence must have BOTH fields empty: OSC 8 ; ; ST. A non-empty URI starts a NEW link rather than closing the old one.
URIs should be absolute and percent-encoded; per the spec the URI should not exceed ~2083 bytes and control bytes / chars outside printable ASCII must be percent-encoded.
Use the id= param when a single link wraps across multiple lines or is interrupted, so the terminal highlights all parts together on hover; without it, wrapped links may be treated as separate links.
Prefer ST (ESC \) over BEL for OSC 8 — the spec explicitly discourages BEL here even though many terminals accept it.
If a terminal does not support OSC 8, it ignores the escape and prints just the link text, so output degrades gracefully — but always include human-meaningful link text, never rely on the URI being visible.
Nesting hyperlinks is not supported; open one, then close it before opening another.

provenance

source: https://gist.github.com/egmontkob/eb114294efbcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda
version: 'Hyperlinks in terminal emulators' spec (Egmont Koblinger / VTE), retrieved 2026-05-29
retrieved: 2026-05-29 · updated: 2026-05-29T00:00:00Z

per-fact attribution:

#summary — https://gist.github.com/egmontkob/eb114294efbcd5adb1944c9f3cb5feda The canonical 'Hyperlinks in terminal emulators' spec: OSC 8 ; params ; URI ST ... OSC 8 ; ; ST. params are key=value pairs separated by ':'; the only standard key is 'id'.
#open — https://wezterm.org/hyperlinks.html WezTerm documents the OSC 8 explicit-hyperlink escape sequence with the same open/close structure (second independent source for the open/close form).
#close — https://wezterm.org/hyperlinks.html OSC 8 ; ; ST (empty params, empty URI) closes the hyperlink span.