That can be a struggle. There used to be a context menu option in maybe xterm or the kde terminal emulator that would copy the wd and maybe even the highlighted file but I might be gpt hallucinating that last one.

After fucking up bad copying from the internet into a terminal about fifteen years ago I have tried to review and understand what’s happening when copying from or to the terminal even in part. It would be bad for me if there weren’t the possibility of (at best) having shit not work when I use middle click with abandon.

I been thinking a lot about designing technology to discourage people from using it. For example it’s a serious mistake when wearable displays are made to look like wayfarers. The danger of people accepting them socially to the point of being manipulated into a state of flow, dissociating from their reality through a combination of sight and sound augmented reality, is too high. Good design of wearable displays should prioritize function over form 100% and make the user look like an insane freak that no one wants to be around, forcing people to remove them in order to maintain social interactions.

I think copying to and from the terminal is like that. When going between an interface which is a very high level mediator of interaction with the machine and one that’s a very low level mediator, we should be alert, on guard and proofreading everything twice. It’s good that we have to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves copying and pasting into the terminal.