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Erase below (ED 0)

Category: erase · Baseline: core · Tags: ECMA-48 Standard, VT100 · Specification ↗

ESC [ 0 J
ED 0 erases from the cursor position to the end of the screen. The sequence is ESC [ 0 J or ESC [ J (parameter defaults to 0). Commonly used to clear the screen below a status bar or after repositioning content. ED 0 is the default ED operation and one of the most common screen-cleanup sequences. Shell prompts, pagers, and TUIs use it after moving the cursor to a known point so stale content below the new layout disappears. Like other erase operations, it should leave cursor position unchanged.
How this is testedautomated
Write three lines, move home, send \x1b[J (ED 0), verify line 2 content is gone.

The same probe runs against headless backends (via Termless) and real terminal apps (via a daemon launched in each terminal). This lets us distinguish parser correctness from rendering correctness.

Analysis2026-05-17

Supported by all 12 tested terminals — universal adoption. Part of the Core TUI baseline.

Supported by 13 of 14 backends (93%)

Terminal Applications

TerminalVersionSupportNotes
iTerm23.6.9✓ yes
Ghostty1.3.1✓ yes
VS Code✓ yes
Warp✓ yes
Kitty0.46.2✓ yes
Cursor✓ yes
Terminal.app✓ yes

Headless Backends

Parser correctness only — a means the parser accepts the sequence.

BackendVersionSupportNotes
Alacritty0.26.0✓ yes
vt100.js0.2.1✓ yes
vterm.js0.2.0✓ yes
WezTerm0.1.0-fork.5✓ yes
xterm.js5.5.0✓ yes