OSC 72 Drag and Drop

OSC 72 ; metadata ; payload ST lets a program in the terminal take part in drag and drop as a graphical program would: accept files or text dropped on it, by MIME type, and start drags of its own. Its definition is kitty’s Drag and Drop protocol. The metadata is key=value pairs separated by :, the t key says which message it is, and a payload over 4096 bytes is sent in chunks marked m=1. Some of the messages:

A terminal that has it answers t=q with OSC 72 ; t=q ; payload ST, where the payload lists optional parts it supports, empty for now, and echoes an i= key if the question had one; a program sends the question and then DA, and takes an answer to DA alone as a no.

A default xterm does not have it and ignores it (the OSC numbers it knows). The cases follow xterm. libghostty-vt implements the protocol, passing drags and drops to its host through the drag_and_drop callback, and answers t=q itself, so that case is a known difference. It answers only a bare t=q, though: a question with i= goes unanswered, which kitty’s document says should be answered with the i echoed.

Validation

OSC72-1: The question is not answered

\e]72;t=q\e\\

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reply none

OSC72-2: Accepting drops changes nothing on screen

A
\e]72;t=a;dGV4dC9wbGFpbg==\e\\  # text/plain
B

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cursor 1,3
reply none