This script retrieves the URL and title of the active Safari tab, constructs an HTML link, and copies it to the clipboard. It also includes a plain-text representation in Markdown syntax.

copy-safari-tab-link.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

# Use osascript to get URL and Title from Safari
url=$(osascript -e 'tell application "Safari" to return URL of front document')
title=$(osascript -e 'tell application "Safari" to return name of front document')

# Strip Safari profile name
title=$(echo "$title" | sed 's/^[^—]*— //')

# Create HTML string with UTF-8 encoding
html=$(echo "<meta charset='utf-8'><a style=\"font-family: sans-serif\" href=\"${url}\">${title}</a>" \
	| hexdump -ve '1/1 "%.2x"')

# Create plain representation (Markdown syntax), escaped for usage in osascript below
plain=$(echo "[${title}](${url})" | sed 's/"/\\"/g')

# Use AppleScript to set the clipboard to HTML format and plain text.
# When omitting the plain text, some apps such as Slack will refuse to
# paste it - despite actually preferring the HTML version).
osascript <<EOF
set the clipboard to {«class HTML»:«data HTML${html}», string:"${plain}"}
EOF

# Return tab title for further processing (i.e. success message)
echo -n "$title"