Display Siri Shortcuts programs in a picker - Swift (macOS)

Question

I'm developing a Swift application for macOS. I would like it to be able to interact with the user's shortcuts (block programs in the Shortcuts application, fig. 1). But I can't locate them...

Do you know where they are located and how I could display them in a picker (fig. 2) so that they can be selected by the user in the app?

Thanks in advance!

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Answer 1

You can get the shortcuts' names using the shortcuts list command. You can run this in Swift using a Process. Here is a simple example:

struct ContentView: View {
    @State var shortcuts = [ShortcutInfo]()
    @State var selection = ""
    var body: some View {
        Picker("Pick a shortcut", selection: $selection) {
            ForEach(shortcuts) {
                Text($0.name)
            }
        }
        .task {
            let shortcuts = (try? await loadShortcutNames()) ?? []
            self.shortcuts = shortcuts
            selection = shortcuts.first?.id ?? ""
        }

        // use "shortcuts run" to run the shortcut
        // there additional options to specify input
        // see "shortcuts help run" for more info
        Button("Run") {
            let process = Process()
            process.executableURL = URL(filePath: "/usr/bin/shortcuts")
            process.arguments = ["run", selection]
            try? process.run()
        }
    }
}

struct ShortcutInfo: Identifiable {
    let id: String
    let name: String
}

func loadShortcutNames() async throws -> [ShortcutInfo] {
    let process = Process()
    process.executableURL = URL(filePath: "/usr/bin/shortcuts")

    // also get the UUID of the shortcut so that ShortcutInfo can be Identifiable
    process.arguments = ["list", "--show-identifiers"]
    let pipe = Pipe()
    process.standardOutput = pipe
    return try await withTaskCancellationHandler {
        try process.run()
        return try await pipe.fileHandleForReading.bytes.lines.compactMap { line in

            // parse the shortcut name and ID
            guard let (_, name, id) = line.wholeMatch(of: /(.*) \(([A-Z0-9-]*)\)/)?.output else {
                return nil
            }
            return ShortcutInfo(id: String(id), name: String(name))
        }.reduce(into: []) { $0.append($1) }
    } onCancel: {
        process.terminate()
    }
}

For the icon and background color of the shortcuts though, they are stored in ~/Library/Shortcuts/Shortcuts.sqlite. You would need a SQLite client to read the database, and reverse-engineer the data. This would be quite fragile, as the database schema could very well change in future versions of macOS, so I wouldn't recommend that.

Hopefully there will be a proper API for accessing Shortcuts in the future.