Feature Request: Minimal Line Editor Commands

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened Sep 15, 2025 by jtele2 Closed Jan 14, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor) responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.

What feature would you like to see?

I’d like to propose adding a minimal set of line editor commands to the codec CLI, similar to what Claude Code provides. I realize that some of these, but not all of them, are implemented already.

In my view, a basic but usable editing experience should include movement, deletion, undo, and a handful of history and yank commands. Below is the minimal set I’d suggest (though this is open to debate).

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Movement
  • C-b → move back one character
  • C-f → move forward one character
  • M-b → move back one word
  • M-f → move forward one word
  • C-a → move to beginning of line
  • C-e → move to end of line
Killing / Deleting
  • C-d → delete character under cursor
  • DEL → delete character before cursor
  • M-d → kill word forward
  • M-DEL → kill word backward
  • C-k → kill to end of line
  • C-u → kill to beginning of line
Yanking
  • C-y → yank (paste last killed text)
  • M-y → cycle kill ring (after C-y)
History
  • C-p → previous command
  • C-n → next command
  • C-r → reverse incremental search
  • C-s → forward incremental search
Editing / Misc
  • C-t → transpose characters
  • M-t → transpose words
  • M-u → uppercase word
  • M-l → lowercase word
  • M-c → capitalize word
  • C-_ → undo
  • C-l → clear screen

Are you interested in implementing this feature?

_No response_

Additional information

_No response_

View original on GitHub ↗

4 Comments

verhovsky · 10 months ago

Only these aren't supported yet:

#### Killing / Deleting M-d → kill word forward #### Yanking C-y → yank (paste last killed text) M-y → cycle kill ring (after C-y) #### History C-p → previous command C-n → next command C-r → reverse incremental search C-s → forward incremental search #### Editing / Misc C-t → transpose characters (used for something else) M-t → transpose words M-u → uppercase word M-l → lowercase word M-c → capitalize word C-_ → undo C-l → clear screen

In my opinion only the deleting one M-d should be implemented, and it should really be implemented, I use it a lot.

brad-modular · 10 months ago

I wouldn't say that only that binding should be implemented, but I also feel it is the most important by far.

etraut-openai contributor · 7 months ago

This feature request has received only a few upvotes in many months, so I'm going to close it.

brad-modular · 7 months ago

I can only speak for myself, but I have started using Claude Code instead of Codex specifically because of little inconsistencies like this in the UX

edit: IMO this should almost be treated as a bug, because all of the most widely used readline shortcuts are implemented except for M-d