🧑‍💻 Prompt Line

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Overview

Prompt Line is a macOS app developed to improve the prompt input experience in the terminal for CLI-based AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, and Gemini CLI. It provides a comfortable input experience through a floating window.

Key capabilities:

1. Quick input, quick paste — Floating window with Cmd+Shift+Space, paste anywhere with Cmd+Enter
2. Context search — Search agent skills, files, symbols, and more with / and @, with prompt history reuse
3. Extensible via plugins — Add custom search and skills with simple YAML files (Plugin Guide)

Features

Quick Launch, Quick Paste

Quick launch with shortcut (Cmd+Shift+Space). Type text and quick paste (Cmd+Enter).

Perfect for Editing Voice-Inputted Text

The operation is the same as a typical text editor. Of course, you can also use it in combination with a voice input app. Pressing Enter will not automatically send the text, so you don't have to worry about line breaks. It is also ideal for editing text entered by voice. (This video uses superwhisper.)

Search and Reuse Prompt History

Prompt history is saved and can be reused from the right menu. Search is also available. (Cmd+f)

Launch Anywhere

Can be launched anywhere there's a text input field. Also convenient when you want to reuse the same prompt in other apps.

Of course, it also works with apps other than Terminal.

Context Search and Autocomplete

Type / or @ to search and autocomplete contexts such as agent skills, built-in commands, files, and symbols. These can be extended with plugins. See: Plugin Guide | prompt-line-plugins

📦 Installation

System Requirements

• macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
• fd and rg (ripgrep) (for file search and symbol search features — installed automatically by the Homebrew cask; source builds need brew install fd ripgrep)

For building from source, the following are also required:

• Node.js 22.12 or later
• pnpm
• Xcode Command Line Tools or Xcode (for compiling native tools)

Install via Homebrew (Cask)

brew install --cask nkmr-jp/tap/prompt-line

Distributed through a personal tap as an unsigned cask (fixed self-signed certificate, not notarized). The cask removes the quarantine attribute automatically during installation. Update with brew upgrade --cask prompt-line. Apple Silicon only — on an Intel Mac, use the source build below instead. The install also links the bundled prompt-line CLI (plugin, reset-accessibility, migrate-settings subcommands) — no Node.js required.

Build and Install from Source

git clone https://github.com/nkmr-jp/prompt-line.git
cd prompt-line
git checkout prompt-line-v0.x.x  # Optional: replace with desired version tag
pnpm install
pnpm run install-app    # Build and install to /Applications (includes code signing setup)

📦 Update

If installed via Homebrew:

brew upgrade --cask prompt-line

If installed from source:

git pull
pnpm install
pnpm run install-app
pnpm run migrate-settings        # Migrate settings to latest defaults (auto-backup)

🚀 Initial Setup

Launch

Launch Prompt Line. An icon will appear in the system tray.

You can start using it with Cmd+Shift+Space.

Accessibility Permissions

Prompt Line requires accessibility permissions to paste text into other applications. A dialog box will appear on first use, so follow the instructions to set it up.

Troubleshooting

If the accessibility permissions dialog box does not appear

1. Open System Settings → Privacy and Security → Accessibility.
2. Find “Prompt Line” in the list and enable it.
3. If it is not in the list, add Prompt Line from Applications using the “+” button.

If “Prompt Line” is enabled in Accessibility Permissions but you still cannot paste

1. Open System Settings → Privacy and Security → Accessibility
2. Delete “Prompt Line” from Applications using the “-” button to reset permissions
3. The issue should be resolved after reconfiguring settings.

Accessibility permissions can also be reset from the command line:

prompt-line reset-accessibility   # Homebrew install or `pnpm add -g .`
pnpm run reset-accessibility      # in a source checkout

Usage

Basic Workflow

1. Move to where you want to input
2. Press Cmd+Shift+Space to open Prompt Line
3. Type your text
4. Press Cmd+Enter to paste text
5. Continue working

Features

• History Panel - Click previous entries to reuse. Search is also available. (Cmd+f)
• Draft Autosave - Automatically saves your work
• Image Support - Paste clipboard images with Cmd+V
• File Opener - Open files from file path text (Ctrl+Enter or Cmd+Click)
• File Search - Search files by typing @
• Symbol Search - Search code symbols by typing @<lang>:<query> (e.g., @ts:Config)
• Custom Search - Search agents, plans, teams, history, etc. by typing @prefix: (extensible with plugins)

⚙️ Settings

Settings file: ~/.prompt-line/settings.yaml (hot-reloaded, no restart needed)

See: Settings Reference | settings.example.yaml | Migration Guide

Per-App Directory Fallback

Prompt Line detects the working directory of the app you came from, so @ file search opens on the right project. Some apps have no directory to detect — browsers and other non-terminal apps. For those, ~/.prompt-line/app-directories.json pins one:

{
  "com.google.Chrome": "/Users/me/ghq/github.com/me/my-project"
}

A flat map of macOS bundle id to absolute path. Find an app's bundle id by bringing it to the front and running:

"/Applications/Prompt Line.app/Contents/Resources/app.asar.unpacked/dist/native-tools/window-detector" current-app
# {"bundleId":"com.google.Chrome","name":"Google Chrome"}

Auto-detection always wins. An entry only takes over on the launches where detection came back with nothing. For a terminal or an IDE that is normally never, so an entry there has no visible effect — but it will still step in on a launch where detection happens to time out, which can look like the directory jumping somewhere else at random. Keep entries to apps that have no directory to detect.

Note that whichever directory is used — detected or pinned — becomes the global last-used directory, so it is also what other apps fall back to when their own detection fails, and what {projectdir} expands to.

Set a value to "" to switch an entry off without removing the key. The file is re-read whenever it changes, so edits apply on the next launch of the input window.

🔌 Plugins

Plugins are YAML files that add agent skills (/), custom search (@prefix:), and built-in commands/skills/agents for CLI tools.

Quickest way: Place a YAML file in ~/.prompt-line/agent-skills/, ~/.prompt-line/custom-search/, or ~/.prompt-line/agent-built-in/ — no GitHub repo needed.

Share via GitHub: Install plugins from repositories:

# If installed via Homebrew, the CLI is already linked — nothing to set up.
# For a source build, run once in the prompt-line project directory:
pnpm add -g .

# Install plugins
prompt-line plugin install github.com/nkmr-jp/prompt-line-plugins
prompt-line plugin install github.com/user/repo@branch   # specific version

Details: docs/en/plugins.md Example repo: prompt-line-plugins

Prompt History

• All data stored locally on your Mac
• No internet connection required
• Prompt history saved in ~/.prompt-line/history.jsonl
• Saved in JSON Lines format, so you can analyze it using DuckDB

Contributing

See Contribution Guide for details.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.