Apple Automation Suite

Hands-on macOS automation-workflow engineering across AppleScript, Automator, Shortcuts, App Intents, JXA (JavaScript for Automation), and shell — plus the deeper layers most people never reach: Services, Quick Actions, Folder Actions, URL schemes, scripting dictionaries, and defaults/plist surfaces. Turning repeated manual Mac tasks into one-tap, one-keystroke, or one-phrase workflows.

It's the open-source continuation of the work the Product Manager of Automation Technologies role at Apple covered before the role was eliminated in 2016. Personal R&D library by esaruoho.

Scope

• 288 Automator workflows (per canonical CV) — the underlying corpus that the skill broadens into the wider toolset
• 301 workflow scripts documented in the maintainer's skill (workflows, AppleScripts, JXA, shell)
• 68 scripting dictionaries documented across the macOS app surface
• 19 bulk exporters — Mail, Notes, iMessage, Voice Memos, Safari, Calendar, Reminders, Photos, Contacts, plist-probe across 1,934 Apple plists, and more
• 65+ CLI tools for orchestrating macOS automation outside Automator
• 66 macOS apps probed across 13 layers (UI, AppleScript, JXA, Shortcuts, Intents, URL schemes, Services, Quick Actions, scripting dictionaries, plist surface, defaults keys, command-line wrappers, exporters)

Surfaces

• AppleToolbox.app — Swift menu-bar app (NSStatusItem, no Homebrew). Live status (HomePod climate, battery, disk, Wi-Fi, Mail, Now Playing, Whisp queue) + click actions
• Vocal Shortcuts integration — "Hey Sal" phrase library (588+ phrases mapped to Shortcuts)
• Slash-command suite — 38+ commands including /snap, /grand-export, /grand-search, /topbar, /qr-wifi, /photo, /turn-into-voice, /folder-to-mbox, /invert, /read, /voicebox-submit, /tag, /window-frame, /spotlight-export, /apple-report, /plist-probe, /grant-perms

Why

Apple eliminated the dedicated Automation product role in 2016. The doctrine — that automation should be democratised, not professionalised — is at risk of fading as Shortcuts displaces AppleScript / Automator without yet covering their full surface. This project continues the work, in the open, mapping the gaps and bridging the layers.

Contribution surface

• 334 commits authored on esaruoho/apple — see Contributions to apple

Related

• wwsd — WWSD operational pattern (What Sal Would Say)
• Skill home: ~/.claude/skills/apple/
• Repo: ~/work/apple/

In this section

• Contributions to applecontributions