CLI Color Ls

`ed color ls`

Lists the colours in the picker's history, newest first.

Usage:

ed color ls [--format <f>] [--limit <n>] [--json]

Options:

Name	Type / values	Default	What it does
`--format <f>`	one of `hex`, `rgb`, `hsl`, `swiftUI`, `nsColor`	unset, which prints the table	Prints that one representation per colour, one per line, and nothing else.
`--limit <n>`	integer, 0 or more	`25`	Shows at most this many colours. `0` shows all of them.
`--json`	flag	off	Emits one JSON document on stdout.

There are no positional arguments.

--format is matched against the raw format names exactly, so swiftUI is accepted and SwiftUI, swiftui and hexadecimal are not; an unknown name exits 3 and lists the five it accepts. --limit is checked before the format name and before the store is read, so a negative value exits 2 with --limit cannot be negative on stderr and nothing on stdout. --limit 0 is not unbounded in practice: the app caps what it stores at colorPickerHistorySize, which is clamped to 1 through 100.

--json shape, an array with one object per colour:

[
  {
    "hex": "#4C6EF5",
    "hsl": "hsl(228, 89%, 63%)",
    "pickedAt": "2026-08-07T18:41:09Z",
    "profile": "sRGB",
    "rgb": "rgb(76, 110, 245)"
  },
  {
    "hex": "#1B1B1E",
    "hsl": "hsl(240, 5%, 11%)",
    "pickedAt": "2026-08-06T21:04:33Z",
    "profile": "displayP3",
    "rgb": "rgb(27, 27, 30)"
  }
]

profile is the raw value, sRGB or displayP3, not the display name the table prints. pickedAt is ISO 8601 in UTC. The JSON carries hex, rgb and hsl only: swiftUI and nsColor are reachable through --format, and the swatch's id and its raw components are not exposed at all. An empty history is an empty array rather than an error.

Examples:

ed color ls
ed color ls --format hex --limit 1
ed color ls --limit 0 --format swiftUI
ed color ls --json

The table is four columns: hex, rgb(), the colour space under its display name, and when it was picked.

$ ed color ls
HEX      RGB                PROFILE     PICKED
#4C6EF5  rgb(76, 110, 245)  sRGB        2026-08-07T18:41:09Z
#F9C442  rgb(249, 196, 66)  sRGB        2026-08-07T18:39:52Z
#1B1B1E  rgb(27, 27, 30)    Display P3  2026-08-06T21:04:33Z

--format replaces the table with bare values, which is what makes the command worth piping. The newest colour is the first line, so --limit 1 is the colour you just picked:

$ ed color ls --format hex --limit 1
#4C6EF5

$ ed color ls --format swiftUI --limit 2
Color(red: 0.2980, green: 0.4310, blue: 0.9610)
Color(red: 0.9760, green: 0.7690, blue: 0.2590)

A name that is not one of the five formats exits 3 with the list, rather than being guessed at:

$ ed color ls --format SwiftUI
error: no colour format named SwiftUI
hint: formats: hex, rgb, hsl, swiftUI, nsColor

Behaviour: ls only reads and writes nothing back, needs neither the main app nor the menu bar helper, and never fails because Edith is closed. With an empty history and no --format it writes no colours picked yet to stderr, leaves stdout empty and exits 0. With --format and an empty history it prints nothing at all, not even that note, so a caller can treat empty output as "no colours" without parsing prose. Unlike ed clipboard ls, a list cut short by --limit says nothing about it, so a default run stops at 25 silently.