Shortcuts actions

Goblin adds actions to Apple's Shortcuts app. Use them to build your own shortcuts, run them from the menu bar or Spotlight, or say them to Siri. There's nothing to turn on in Goblin.

Add a Goblin action to a shortcut#

1. Open the Shortcuts app.
2. Click + in the toolbar to start a new shortcut.
3. In the right-hand panel, click Apps, then click Goblin. (Or type "Goblin" in the search box.)
4. Double-click an action to add it, or drag it into the shortcut.
5. Fill in the action's options, such as Reading or For.
6. Click the Play button ▶ at the top of the shortcut to run it once and see what it does.

Name the shortcut and it shows in Shortcuts, the menu bar, Spotlight and, by name, to Siri. The sections below list every action and its options.

Readings and windows#

Get Goblin Reading and Get Busiest Goblin App take a fresh reading each time, which takes a moment. If a reading isn't available, the action stops with "This reading isn't available on this Mac yet." That happens, for example, when you ask for Battery percent on a Mac without a battery, or for a temperature your Mac doesn't report.

The numbers come in plain units, so you can compare them directly: memory in bytes, network speeds in bytes per second, temperatures in degrees Celsius whatever unit Goblin shows.

Example: warn me when the Mac runs hot#

1. In Shortcuts, start a new shortcut and add Get Goblin Reading.
2. Set Reading to CPU temperature in Celsius.
3. Add an If action. Set it to Reading (the output of the first action) is greater than 90.
4. Inside the If, add Show Notification and type "Mac is running hot".
5. Click ▶ to run it.

If the processor is above 90 degrees Celsius, a notification appears; otherwise nothing happens. To run it all the time, use Shortcuts' Automation tab to run it every few minutes.

Keep Awake#

Example: keep my Mac awake for four hours#

1. In Shortcuts, start a new shortcut and add Start Keep Awake.
2. In the For field, type 4 and choose hr.
3. Name the shortcut "Keep my Mac awake for four hours".
4. Click ▶ to run it. Siri reads back "Your Mac will stay awake for 4 hours."

Now you can say "Hey Siri, keep my Mac awake for four hours", or click the shortcut in the Shortcuts menu bar menu. Leave For empty and the dialog reads "Your Mac will stay awake until you stop Keep Awake."

Lengths must be between one second and 30 days; anything else stops with "Keep Awake needs a length of time between a second and 30 days."

Turning Closed lid off in Start Keep Awake doesn't override your settings: if closed-lid mode is on by default in Settings›Keep Awake, the session still uses it. See Keep Awake basics.

Capture, text, Measure and archives#

These actions also live under Apps›Goblin.

Capture. Capture the Screen, Capture After a Countdown, Start Screen Recording, Stop Screen Recording, Pause or Resume Screen Recording, Is Screen Recording On, Hide Desktop Icons, Annotate Last Screenshot and Open Capture History. They're listed with their options in Automating capture.

Reading text. Read Text from File reads the text in an image or PDF and gives it back as text. Pages is blank for all pages, one page such as 3, or a range such as 2-5. Read Text from Clipboard does the same for a copied image, or an image or PDF file copied in Finder. See Capture Text.

Measure. Start Measuring starts measuring the screen, and Restore Last Measurements starts with the guides, held distances and selected objects from your last session. Measure has to be turned on in Settings first; see Measure.

Archives. These work on files from other actions, so you can chain them. See Archives.

Clipboard#

These work with Goblin's clipboard. Every one of them stops with "Turn on Clipboard in Goblin's Settings first." while Clipboard is off.

What comes back as text: a link gives its address, and files give their names, one per line.

Get Clipboard Item at Index makes a pinboard a handy place to keep text for shortcuts: keep a greeting at place 1, a signature at place 2, and fetch whichever you need. Passwords and other secrets don't count toward the places.

Paste Clip pastes only when Paste Items is set to To active app in Settings › Clipboard and Goblin has Accessibility access; otherwise it puts the clip on the clipboard and you press ⌘V yourself. See Permissions. A template clip opens its fill-in panel first, as in the strip; see Snippets.

To choose a clip for Paste Clip or Copy Pinboard Item, Shortcuts lists your newest clips and lets you search them. Goblin also adds a Find Clips action, where you filter by Title, Kind, App or Copied (the date) and sort the results.

Shortcuts never sees passwords and other secrets, items in the Trash, or anything in a locked pinboard. Asking for a locked pinboard stops with "That pinboard is locked. Items in a locked pinboard are never given to Shortcuts."

Other messages you may see:

Siri, Shortcuts and Spotlight#

To use a phrase, say "Hey Siri", then the phrase from the table, with Goblin in it. To see everything you can say, open Settings›Siri Phrases.

Goblin exposes its actions to Shortcuts and provides the built-in Siri phrases below. Control Goblin adds a shared command catalog for feature screens, native controls and typed settings. Say a command followed by with Goblin, or say Control Goblin to choose an action. Find the same actions in Spotlight and Shortcuts:

Timed Keep Awake phrases accept 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, or 1 day. Siri confirms the duration after Goblin starts the session. Say "Keep my Mac awake for a while with Goblin" to have Siri ask for a duration. Existing battery and heat rules still apply, and quitting Goblin ends the session. The plain "Keep my Mac awake with Goblin" phrase stays awake until stopped. For another duration, build a shortcut using Start Keep Awake and set For to your duration.

Use the app name in the built-in phrases so Siri can choose Goblin. To say simply "Keep my Mac awake for four hours", create a shortcut with that name containing Start Keep Awake, with For set to 4 hours.

Commands for the other features#

Say these directly to Siri. If the command needs a value, Siri asks for it; Control Goblin in Shortcuts also has Number, Text and Duration fields so a saved shortcut can supply the values.

A command that starts a scan, upload, recording selection or hardware request says it was requested. It does not claim that the work finished or that a pending macOS approval succeeded. Editors, file-removal reviews and security setup keep their native steps. You can still build named shortcuts around the individual existing actions.

Your clips in Spotlight#

Find your clips in Spotlight#

1. Make sure Clipboard is on in Settings›Clipboard.
2. In the same pane, scroll to Spotlight.
3. Switch on Find clips in Spotlight.
4. Open Spotlight (⌘Space) and search for text you copied. Your clips are listed.

Your clips show up when you search in Spotlight; see Settings › Clipboard for the setting. Choosing one opens the Clipboard page of Goblin's window with that clip selected. It's off by default, and it's a setting for each Mac. Clipboard has to be on too. Once you have 50 or more clips, or while you search the clipboard, Goblin offers it once with a "Find your clips from Spotlight too" card; Turn On and Not Now both make the card go away for good.

What goes into Spotlight, on this Mac only:

• your newest 1,000 clips in History, and up to 500 from each pinboard;
• for each, its title, the first 300 characters of its text (a link's address, a color's hex code, a file's names), its kind, the app it came from and its pinboard's name. For an image, only "Image" or "Screenshot" and its size, never the text Goblin read in it.

Passwords and other secrets, the Trash and locked pinboards are never added. Neither is anything while Encrypt clipboard history on this Mac is on, so turning encryption on empties Goblin's part of Spotlight. Turning Find clips in Spotlight off removes everything Goblin added.

Every Siri phrase#

Open Settings›Siri Phrases to search every registered action and its alternate wording, see follow-up questions, and copy phrases. Your custom window layouts are included. The complete Siri phrase reference is also bundled into Goblin AI. Ask “What can I say to Siri?” or “Siri phrases for brightness.”

Other ways to automate#

• A keyboard shortcut can open the dropdown or the window, or turn Keep Awake on or off, without Shortcuts. See Keyboard shortcuts.
• Scripts can control Keep Awake through AppleScript, and the Run AppleScript action can run them.

Run the goblin command or a link from a shortcut#

To run the goblin command, add the Run Shell Script action and type the full path to the command. You need the command installed first.

~/.local/bin/goblin list --json

This gives the shortcut a JSON list of your dev servers as its output. Use the full path, because the action may not search ~/.local/bin.

To open a goblin:// link, add the Open URLs action and type the link in it.

goblin://clip/pause?for=30m

This stops the clipboard recording for 30 minutes when the shortcut runs.