Cinch Documentation

Cinch is an open-source remote clipboard for developer context. Local history. Cross-machine clipboard. MCP tools.

What is Cinch?

Cinch has three parts that work together:

Local-first clipboard history — the CLI and desktop app write to ~/.cinch/store.db so terminal output, copied snippets, and logs are searchable before any sync happens.

Remote clipboard / self-hostable relay — cinch send and cinch pull can move clips between machines through a relay. Payloads are encrypted on the client; the relay stores ciphertext only.

MCP + transforms for AI workflows — cinch mcp exposes clip history to MCP-aware tools, cinch history transform prepares text, and cinch ai fix turns terminal errors into AI-ready debugging prompts.

git diff HEAD~1 | cinch send    # on your server
cinch pull                      # on your local machine
cargo test 2>&1 | cinch ai fix --no-send

The hosted relay is free while Cinch grows. Treat it as best-effort onboarding infrastructure with fair-use and abuse limits. For stronger control, self-host the relay on your own VPS, Fly.io app, Docker host, or private network.

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Get started

Why Cinch?

The mental model in one page: what Cinch does, what it doesn’t, and how it compares to scp / OSC 52 / shared paste buffers.

Why Cinch? →

Quick Start

A focused 5-minute walkthrough: install, add machines to your fleet, copy your first clip, and send it across.

Quick Start →

CLI Reference

Full reference for cinch copy, cinch send, cinch pull, cinch auth, and cinch ai.

CLI Reference →

Self-hosting the Relay

Run your own relay with Docker or a single Go binary. One command to deploy.

Relay docs →