OSC 7 — Current working directory hint

Tell the terminal which directory the shell is in — used for tab labels, 'new tab here', and remote-aware split-pane workflows.

Byte forms

Every common string-literal form so you can paste-and-search either direction.

\\x1b[\x1b]7;file://HOST/PATH\x07

\\033[\033]7;file://HOST/PATH\007

\\e[\e]7;file://HOST/PATH\a

ESC [ESC ] 7 ; URL BEL

hex1b 5d 37 3b ... 07

Description

Tell the terminal the shell's current working directory as a `file://HOST/PATH` URL. Adopted by iTerm2, Windows Terminal, kitty, wezterm, ghostty, Konsole, and VTE-based terminals (gnome-terminal, foot). The terminal uses this for: (a) tab / pane labels that show the basename of the directory, (b) the `Cmd-T`/`new tab here` action that spawns a new shell in the same `cwd`, (c) `tmux` resurrect / wezterm `mux` recovery that restores split panes to the right directory after a session crash. The shell emits this on every prompt — bash via `PROMPT_COMMAND`, zsh via `precmd` or `chpwd`, fish has `__fish_cwd_osc` built in. The hostname matters over SSH: the terminal can refuse to reopen a tab on the remote host since it would have to ssh again.

Spec citation: iTerm2 Proprietary Escape Codes (OSC 7) / VTE / kitty

Examples

bash

# Emit on every prompt — bash 5+\nPROMPT_COMMAND='printf "\033]7;file://%s%s\007" "$HOSTNAME" "$PWD"'

python

import os, socket, sys; sys.stdout.write(f'\x1b]7;file://{socket.gethostname()}{os.getcwd()}\x07')

host, _ := os.Hostname(); wd, _ := os.Getwd(); fmt.Printf("\x1b]7;file://%s%s\x07", host, wd)

javascript

import os from 'node:os'; process.stdout.write(`\x1b]7;file://${os.hostname()}${process.cwd()}\x07`)

char host[256]; gethostname(host, sizeof host); printf("\x1b]7;file://%s%s\x07", host, getcwd(NULL, 0));

Terminal support

xterm: no
Linux console (fbcon): no
macOS Terminal.app: partial
iTerm2: yes
Windows Terminal: yes
cmd.exe / ConPTY: no
kitty: yes
alacritty: partial
WezTerm: yes
Ghostty: yes
GNOME Terminal: yes
Konsole: yes
tmux: no
GNU screen: no

xterm	Linux console (fbcon)	macOS Terminal.app	iTerm2	Windows Terminal	cmd.exe / ConPTY	kitty	alacritty	WezTerm	Ghostty	GNOME Terminal	Konsole	tmux	GNU screen
no	no	partial	yes	yes	no	yes	partial	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no

Related sequences

In the family cookbook

OSC cookbook · 5. Shell prompt marks — `OSC 133` (FinalTerm A / B / C / D)