Mac Shortcuts — read your Mac from any agent

mac-shortcuts-mcp

Let any AI agent read your Mac. Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Contacts, Clipboard, Location, Weather, now playing — through Apple Shortcuts. Read-only, local, no account, no server.

Works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, or any MCP client.

npx -y mac-shortcuts-mcp setup      # install the read recipes (once)

{  "mcpServers": {    "mac": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "mac-shortcuts-mcp"] }  }}

Then ask your agent: "What's on my calendar this week?" · "Find the note about the lease." · "What's Jane's number?"

Why this exists

Your agent cannot read Apple's first-party apps. It has no permission to, and there is no API. Shortcuts can. This server hands the job to Shortcuts.app, which does have those permissions, and gives you back the text.

That is the whole trick. Nothing here is clever — it is just wired up.

What it can do

The bundled recipes are read-only. mac_run_shortcut can run any installed Shortcut, including one that writes data or sends messages. Its description asks the agent to check with you when the behavior is unknown; this is not an enforced read-only sandbox.

Everything read from your Mac comes back tagged as data, not instructions, so a note that says "ignore your previous instructions" is handed to the agent as text rather than as a command.

The action catalog

action-catalog.json in this package documents 539 Shortcuts actions — for each one, the parameter keys it accepts, their types, labels, output type and required permissions.

Apple does not publish this. It was extracted from the live WFActionRegistry on macOS 27.

It matters because a wrong parameter key does not raise an error — it is silently ignored, and your shortcut returns a confident wrong answer. We measured exactly that: a composed shortcut with a plausible-but-wrong key returned 0 instead of 3, with no warning.

Use mac_action_catalog to look up a key, or just read the JSON. MIT, take it.

is.workflow.actions.addnewevent  — 새로운 이벤트  [harvested]  출력: EKEvent  권한: calendar, contacts, needs-interaction  · WFCalendarItemTitle (text) — 제목  · WFCalendarItemStartDate (date) — 시작일  …

Coverage: 497 harvested from the registry, 9 inferred from cached definition strings, 33 not present on macOS (iOS-only actions, plus a few strings that are not actions at all — including one Apple typo).

Setup, honestly

mac-shortcuts-mcp setup signs the bundled recipes on your Mac and opens each in the Shortcuts app. You click Add Shortcut once per recipe.

The package ships readable XML plists, not signed binaries. Open recipes/*.plist and see exactly what you are installing. An open-source tool that asks you to install opaque blobs is not really open.

Pass --auto and it will click Add Shortcut for you using the Accessibility API. That needs Accessibility permission, so it is off by default — a tool should not quietly ask for that.

The first time a recipe touches Contacts or Calendar, macOS asks for permission. That prompt belongs to Shortcuts, not to this server.

Limits

This does nothing while your Mac is asleep. Processes are stopped; there is nothing to talk to. Screen lock is fine — we measured 62 of 63 calls succeeding with the screen locked, at the same speed as unlocked. Sleep is the real wall.

The bundled recipes read data; arbitrary installed Shortcuts may have side effects. macOS only. Results go to the agent you connected.

When you need a device that is never asleep

A Mac in a bag cannot answer. A phone in your pocket can.

Askew does the same thing for a locked iPhone — your agent runs a Shortcut on the phone and gets the result back in about three seconds, screen off, phone in your pocket. That one is not free, and it is a different problem: it needs a push relay, end-to-end encryption and an app. This tool is the part that does not.

License

MIT. Issues and pull requests welcome.

한국어

에이전트가 내 맥을 읽게 해 줍니다. 일정·미리 알림·메모·연락처·클립보드·위치·날씨를 애플 단축어로 읽습니다. 읽기 전용, 로컬, 계정 없음, 서버 없음.

npx -y mac-shortcuts-mcp setup      # 읽기 레시피 설치 (처음 한 번)

에이전트가 퍼스트파티 앱을 못 읽는 건 권한이 없어서고 API도 없기 때문입니다. 단축어는 읽을 수 있습니다. 이 서버는 일을 Shortcuts.app에 넘기고 결과 텍스트만 받아 옵니다.

기본 레시피는 읽기 전용입니다. 다만 mac_run_shortcut은 쓰기·메시지 발송을 포함한 설치된 단축어도 실행할 수 있습니다. 동작을 모르면 사용자에게 먼저 묻도록 안내하지만, 읽기 전용을 강제하는 격리 환경은 아닙니다. 맥에서 읽어 온 내용은 전부 지시가 아니라 자료라는 꼬리표를 달고 갑니다.

동작 카탈로그 539종을 같이 공개합니다. 동작마다 어떤 매개변수 키를 받는지, 애플이 문서로 내지 않는 값입니다. 키가 틀리면 오류 없이 조용히 무시되고 틀린 답이 옵니다 — 실제로 그렇게 재 봤습니다. 실행은 누구나 할 수 있지만 만드는 건 이 표가 있어야 합니다.

한계: 맥이 자면 아무것도 못 합니다. 화면 잠금은 괜찮습니다(잠근 채로 63회 중 62회 성공, 속도도 같음). 자는 게 벽입니다.

자지 않는 기기가 필요하면 그건 폰입니다. Askew가 잠긴 아이폰에 같은 일을 합니다. 화면을 켜지 않고 3초쯤에 결과가 돌아옵니다. 그건 무료가 아니고 다른 문제입니다 — 푸시 릴레이와 종단 암호화와 앱이 필요합니다. 이 도구는 그게 필요 없는 부분입니다.