> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://pomeroy.app/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Shortcuts

> Your AI assistant can run a Shortcut you already built, by name. It cannot create, edit, or delete one, and this is how Pomeroy reaches apps it has no tools for.

Shortcuts is the app where **you** decide what is possible. Pomeroy can run
what you have already built, and nothing else.

<Columns cols={2}>
  <div>
    **Can**

    * List your shortcuts by name
    * Run one by its exact name and hand back whatever it produced
    * Pass a line of text into a shortcut as its input
  </div>

  <div>
    **Cannot**

    * Create, edit, or delete a shortcut
    * Run a shortcut you have not already made
    * Leave a shortcut waiting: one that stops to ask for a click is ended after
      two minutes
  </div>
</Columns>

## Tools

| Tool             | What it does                                                                                                                | Kind  |
| ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----- |
| `shortcuts_list` | The shortcuts on this Mac, by name, sorted. Start here, because `shortcuts_run` takes one of these names exactly as spelled | Read  |
| `shortcuts_run`  | Runs one shortcut by its exact name and returns whatever it produced                                                        | Write |

## Try it

```text theme={null}
Run my Wind Down shortcut.
What shortcuts do I have?
Run Log Expense with "coffee 3.40".
```

## This is the escape hatch, and it is yours

A shortcut you built can do things Pomeroy will not do itself, including
sending a message.

That power is yours. You set it up in the Shortcuts app, you decide exactly
what it does, and Pomeroy only starts the shortcut you name. It cannot write
one, cannot change one, and cannot invent a capability you have not already
given it.

This is also **how Pomeroy reaches an app it has no tools for**. Pomeroy never
reads your screen and never asks for Accessibility, so an app with no scripting
interface is reached by a shortcut you made for it: a deliberate, visible,
revocable thing rather than an app quietly gaining the run of your Mac.

<Warning>
  `shortcuts_run` is the one tool that can do something you did not directly
  ask for, because a shortcut can do anything you built into it. Switch
  Shortcuts off if you would rather an assistant could not start them.
</Warning>

## Worth knowing

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="The name must match character for character" icon="spell-check">
    A near miss runs nothing. Instead it comes back with the candidates, so an
    assistant can ask you which one you meant rather than guessing and running
    the wrong automation.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Two minutes, then it stops" icon="hourglass-end">
    A shortcut that waits for someone to click is killed after two minutes.
    Nothing sits half-run holding your assistant open.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Whatever it produced comes back" icon="arrow-turn-down">
    If your shortcut outputs text, the assistant gets it and can use it in its
    answer.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Permissions

Switching Shortcuts on asks macOS for permission to control Shortcuts
(`NSAppleEventsUsageDescription`). Separate from Mail and Notes.