Apple Shortcuts

Apple Shortcuts MCP Server

An MCP server that exposes Apple Shortcuts functionality to Rebel via the macOS shortcuts CLI.

One-click install

[Add to Cursor] [Add to VS Code] [Add to VS Code Insiders]

After clicking the button, your host will prompt you to fill: APPLE_SHORTCUTS_TIMEOUT_MS.

{  "mcpServers": {    "Apple Shortcuts": {      "command": "npx",      "args": [        "-y",        "@mindstone/mcp-server-apple-shortcuts"      ],      "env": {        "APPLE_SHORTCUTS_TIMEOUT_MS": "120000"      }    }  }}

Status

• Version: 0.2.1 · npm
• Auth: None (server.json)
• Tools: 3 (shortcuts)
• Surface: local-cli
• Machine-readable: STATUS.json

Prerequisites

• macOS with the Shortcuts app installed
• Node.js 18+

Setup

cd ~/mcp-servers/apple-shortcutsnpm installnpm run build

No credentials or environment variables are required.

Tools

apple_shortcuts_list

List all available shortcuts, optionally filtered by folder.

apple_shortcuts_run

Run a named shortcut with optional text input.

apple_shortcuts_view

Open a named shortcut in the Shortcuts app editor on the Mac, so you can visually review what it does before running it. The definition opens in the Shortcuts GUI — this tool does not return the definition as text.

Configuration

No credentials are required. One optional environment variable tunes runtime behavior:

Output trust model

Shortcut names (apple_shortcuts_list) and shortcut stdout (apple_shortcuts_run, apple_shortcuts_view) are user-authored text returned by the local shortcuts CLI. The connector wraps all such output in <untrusted-content source="apple-shortcuts:..."> envelopes so the model treats it as data, not instructions. Shortcut names echoed back in apple_shortcuts_run / apple_shortcuts_view confirmation, error, and timeout messages are enveloped the same way — a name is attacker-controllable text once it appears in the list output.

Register in Rebel

Add the connector in Settings → Connectors with:

• Command: node
• Args: ["<absolute path to>/mcp-servers/apple-shortcuts/dist/index.js"] (e.g. ~/mcp-servers/apple-shortcuts/dist/index.js expanded to an absolute path)

Caveats

• macOS only — the shortcuts CLI is not available on other platforms.
• Shortcuts that open GUI dialogs or prompt for confirmation cannot answer from the command line; they are terminated after APPLE_SHORTCUTS_TIMEOUT_MS (default 120s) instead of blocking forever. If termination cannot be confirmed (signal delivery fails or the process never exits after SIGKILL), the timeout error says the process may still be running rather than claiming it was stopped.
• Captured stdout/stderr per invocation is bounded (1,000,000 characters per stream); output beyond the bound is dropped and marked with a truncation notice, so a shortcut emitting unbounded output cannot exhaust memory.
• Running a shortcut has the same system permissions as the logged-in user — a shortcut can send messages, delete files, make purchases, control devices, or call remote APIs. apple_shortcuts_run is annotated destructiveHint: true so hosts require explicit user approval before running one.