Request for Improvement of the /clear Function in GitHub Copilot CLI

[aurakoerp]

Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve

the /clear function clears the entire screen in bash or terminal

Proposed solution

Hello, I am using GitHub Copilot effectively.
In Claude's code, the /clear function clears the entire screen in bash or terminal, including the scroll history. However, in the GitHub Copilot CLI, the scroll state remains intact, so when I scroll up, I can still see all the previous work. The term "clear" typically implies a complete reset, meaning the terminal content should be fully cleared, and the scroll should also be reset. However, the GitHub Copilot CLI does not function this way, so I end up using /exit to leave, then running clear in the terminal, and re-entering Copilot. This process is too cumbersome and inconvenient.
If possible, I kindly request an update regarding this issue.
Thank you.

Example prompts or workflows

No response

Additional context

No response

[andyfeller]

Thank you for raising this suggestion, @aurakoerp!

Initially, /clear worked the way you suggest, clearing the scroll back buffer. It was changed to behave more like clear and Ctrl-l in sh family, which doesn't clear the scroll back buffer.

Rather than going one way or another, my $0.02 would be to provide users with a setting they could choose the behavior they want. 🤔

[aurakoerp]

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As shown in the image, when I run the clear command multiple times, the scroll keeps stacking up. In my small terminal window, the scroll accumulates with the total content length, eventually causing the terminal to lag. Since completed requests can already be retrieved when needed using options like --resume or --history, there’s no real need to keep viewing the previously scrolled content, which makes this issue more noticeable.

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claude code cli sample image that repeats clear 10 times