Interactive CLI Chrome Bookmarks fuzzy search and clipboard copy (jq + fzf + wl-copy)

chrome-bookmarks-fzf.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# ==============================================================================
# TOOL: Chrome Bookmarks Interactive Fuzzy Search & Clipboard Tool
# ==============================================================================
#
# USAGE:
#   Run this command directly in your terminal, or bind it to a bash/zsh function.
#
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# PIPELINE ARCHITECTURE BREAKDOWN
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 1. JQ (JSON Extraction & Table Rendering):
#    - Chrome's 'Bookmarks' file is plain JSON (NOT an SQLite database; commands
#      like 'sqlite3 .tables' will not work on it).
#    - Traversal: Uses the recursive descent operator '..' across all folders
#      inside '.roots' ('bookmark_bar', 'other', 'synced', and any nested sub-folders).
#    - Filter: 'select(.type == "url")' isolates leaf bookmarks from folders.
#    - Sorting: 'sort_by(.name // "" | ascii_downcase)' sorts A-Z case-insensitively.
#    - Sanitization: 'gsub("[\t\r\n]+"; " ")' replaces tabs/newlines in bookmark
#      titles with spaces to prevent breaking the Tab-Separated Values (TSV) stream.
#    - Fixed-Width Padding ('pad(45)'):
#        * Padded with spaces to 45 chars, or truncated with '…' if longer.
#        * Ensures the vertical divider '│' lines up in a straight table column.
#    - 3-Field TSV Output (Decoupling Search from Display):
#        * Field 1 (Hidden): Raw URL (for clean extraction on selection).
#        * Field 2 (Hidden): Raw full title (for 100% lossless search).
#        * Field 3 (Visible): ANSI-colored formatted table row:
#            [Bold Cyan Title (45c)] [Gray │ Divider] [Green URL]
#
# 2. FZF (Fuzzy Interactive Search):
#    - '--ansi': Interprets ANSI color escape codes cleanly.
#    - '--delimiter=\t': Splits fields by tabs.
#    - '--with-nth=3': Renders ONLY Field 3 (the clean aligned table) in the UI.
#    - '--nth=1,2': Targets BOTH raw URL (Field 1) and full Title (Field 2) for
#      full-text matching. Even if a title was truncated to 45 chars visually,
#      fzf still searches against 100% of the hidden full title and URL.
#    - '--layout=reverse': Places search input prompt at the TOP with top-to-bottom results.
#
# 3. CUT (Result Extraction):
#    - 'cut -f1': Extracts only Field 1 (the clean, raw URL) upon pressing <Enter>.
#
# 4. TEE & WL-COPY (Dual Output & Wayland Clipboard):
#    - 'tee /dev/stderr': Prints the chosen URL to the terminal screen.
#    - 'wl-copy': Native Wayland clipboard utility; copies the URL to clipboard.
#
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# CHAIN OF THOUGHT & HISTORICAL DESIGN DECISIONS
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# - Why not SQLite?
#     Unlike History/Cookies/Web Data, Chrome Bookmarks is purely JSON.
# - Why recursive '..'?
#     Bookmarks can be nested arbitrarily deep inside folder hierarchies.
# - Why not a simple 'name\turl' display?
#     Without color coding and fixed-width padding, long titles caused the title
#     and URL to merge into one continuous line, making visual scanning difficult.
# - Why 3 decoupled TSV fields instead of 1 or 2?
#     Directly truncating text would break searchability for words past char 45.
#     Keeping raw title/URL in Fields 1 & 2 while displaying Field 3 gives the best
#     of both worlds: a clean table layout + 100% lossless search.
# - Why 'wl-copy' over 'xclip'/'xsel'?
#     On Wayland sessions, 'wl-copy' is native and persistent, avoiding XWayland
#     emulation drops when the subshell closes.
#
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# KNOWN CAVEATS & TRADE-OFFS
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# - Cancellation on <Esc>:
#     Piping directly to 'wl-copy' without checking for empty strings will clear
#     the clipboard if you cancel fzf with <Esc> or <Ctrl+C>.
#     (To make it cancel-safe, switch to: '... | xargs -r -I{} sh -c "wl-copy -n \"{}\"; echo \"{}\""')
# - Stderr Output:
#     'tee /dev/stderr' writes to stderr. It displays on your screen, but cannot
#     be piped downstream (e.g., 'cb | xdg-open' will receive nothing on stdin).
# - Trailing Newline:
#     Standard 'wl-copy' copies a trailing newline. Use 'wl-copy -n' if you want
#     to paste into address bars without auto-submitting.
#
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# FUTURE ITERATION IDEAS
# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# - Dynamic Profile Detection: Replace 'Profile 3' with a parameter or fzf selector.
# - Bottom Preview Window: Add '--preview' and '--preview-window=down:3:wrap' to
#   read full titles of truncated rows on hover.
# - Direct Browser Launcher: Append '&& google-chrome "$url"' to open on Enter.
# ==============================================================================

jq -r '
def sanitize: gsub("[\t\r\n]+"; " ");
def pad(n): if (length > n) then (.[:n-1] + "…") else (. + (" " * (n - length))) end;

[.roots | .. | objects | select(.type == "url")]
| sort_by(.name // "" | ascii_downcase)
| .[]
| ((.name // "Untitled") | sanitize) as $name
| "\(.url)\t\($name)\t\u001b[1;36m\($name | pad(45))\u001b[0m \u001b[38;5;240m│\u001b[0m \u001b[32m\(.url)\u001b[0m"
' "/home/user/.config/google-chrome/Profile X/Bookmarks" \
  | fzf --ansi --delimiter='\t' --with-nth=3 --nth=1,2 --layout=reverse \
  | cut -f1 \
  | tee /dev/stderr \
  | wl-copy