As we know, it depends on the actual environment, where simpler or more complex options are available out-of-the-box.
Meanwhile, have you tried?:
- https://github.com/hluk/copyq
- https://copyq.readthedocs.io/en/latest/scripting.html

In CopyQ, since its compiled with the clipboard event handling, it's sure possible to handle these events, including changing the content or launching custom scripts, and though I don't like Python, I do like JavaScript, and CopyQ has built-in support for quite limited but JavaScript with its own API function built-in to handle it, mentioned in the documentation above.

Preview of the settings I've just checked out in a Kubuntu machine I had on hands:

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And it worked! The quick scripts I tried are the following:

copyq:
try {
    var original = str(clipboard());
} catch(e) {
    abort();
}

// If empty or too long
if (!original || original.length > 10000) {
     abort();
}

try {
    var executed = execute('/home/user/scripts/clean-url.sh', original);
} catch(e) {
    abort();
}

// If failed to execute
if (!executed) {
    abort();
}

var cleaned = str(executed.stdout).trim();

// If empty or matches the original (CopyQ may get into a loop otherwise)
if (!cleaned || !cleaned.length || cleaned === original) {
    abort();
}

// Change the clipboard buffer
copy(cleaned);

That program or script, to clean it, may be anything you prefer of course, including Bash, Perl, PHP, JavaScript, or what AutoHotKey does/executes in your case possibly.

There's the following to automate the read/write I know but haven't used, too:
- https://github.com/Slackadays/Clipboard

In Wayland, you may use wl-paste to read, and wl-copy to write into the clipboard.
In X11, xclip to both read and write.

The thing is that there should be some kind of event to handle on the clipboard change, and there options as DBus or Qt, yet I am not currently aware of a verified option to do so without an actually compiler program to subscribe to such an event.

For instance, Klipper, the Qt program, uses the even handling over DBus exposed via its libraries for convenience.