I've just used this extensively to build 200 Shortcuts for my event-based automation app on macOS [0], because some actions you simply can't do without Shortcuts: changing Focus Mode, toggling Accessibility functions like Color Filters, accessing the Private Cloud Compute model etc.

I also wrote about how Claude was able to basically learn the language from scratch and write those fully compilable Shortcuts for me [1] because it was mind boggling to me that an LLM can do that. Curiously, this is becoming more and more normal in my mind.

Cool! As a professional programmer few things consistently succeed in making me feel inept like trying to build an Apple Shortcut

Still confused on why there is no social component of this? What is the best place to find examples of actual useful Apple Shortcuts?

What can you do on a Mac with Shortcuts vs AppleScript vs Hammerspoon?

I built a small app to follow my infant son's feedings and diaper changes. Simply used the shortcuts get content of url to call the API rest endpoints. This is much better !

Looks quite cool and I'd like to give a try. What is the main use case for compiling code to shortcuts? I ask because I'm working on a tool[0] that in a way does the opposite.

[0] https://breadboards.io

Is this vibe coded? The README at least looks very LLM-ish.

Very cool! IMHO Apple Shortcuts will finally get the love they're due in the age of AI.

I’m interested to understand how this is different than Jelly; they seem to be similar. Same for Scriptable. I’ve been looking at this to hand over to Claude to build Shortcuts, something which has a terrible development experience.

Could you explain more about how the signing setup works?

(That's what held me back most for spending more effort on shortcuts.)

whither AppleScript?

Adjacently, does anyone know of a Terraform-like syntax for creating GitHub Actions YML files?

While it's not in quite the same product category, a name change might be in order; this is uncomfortably close to CHERI (cf. https://cheri-alliance.org/).

Cool! As a professional programmer few things consistently succeed in making me feel inept like trying to build an Apple Shortcut

I built a small app to follow my infant son's feedings and diaper changes. Simply used the shortcuts get content of url to call the API rest endpoints. This is much better !

Is this vibe coded? The README at least looks very LLM-ish.

Very cool! IMHO Apple Shortcuts will finally get the love they're due in the age of AI.

Still confused on why there is no social component of this? What is the best place to find examples of actual useful Apple Shortcuts?

What can you do on a Mac with Shortcuts vs AppleScript vs Hammerspoon?

There are some things that are only available in Shortcuts because Apple gave the app entitlements to communicate with parts of the system that an AppleScript or other apps can't. Things like setting/getting the Focus Mode, changing some system settings like Airdrop Receiving, Color Filters, Background Sounds etc.

Also some apps export Shortcut actions that can run in-app code: for example my Lunar app has an action that can help fixing arrangement when monitors flip around [1]

It's much easier to implement a struct for a Shortcut, than exporting AppleScript sdef files or creating IPC command-line tools, so a lot of apps take this route for code that needs access to the memory of the running app.

[1] https://lunar.fyi/shortcuts#fix-monitor-arrangement

Looks quite cool and I'd like to give a try. What is the main use case for compiling code to shortcuts? I ask because I'm working on a tool[0] that in a way does the opposite.

[0] https://breadboards.io

What you're doing is visual programming. On its own there isn't anything wrong with it. However, specifically with Shortcuts it's not very pleasant for anything complex.

I had a full garden automation running on shortcuts, but it was extreme hard to maintain and improve due to "editor" being so bare bones.

whither AppleScript?

Adjacently, does anyone know of a Terraform-like syntax for creating GitHub Actions YML files?

Also some apps export Shortcut actions that can run in-app code: for example my Lunar app has an action that can help fixing arrangement when monitors flip around [1]

[1] https://lunar.fyi/shortcuts#fix-monitor-arrangement

You can definitely have Claude work with cherri files.

Jelly was a confusing experience for me, with JellyCuts becoming closed source and focusing on advertising, then Open-Jellycore branching out but not actually keeping up with the latest shortcut actions.

Cherri has almost every action you can find in the Shortcuts app, easy to use, and easy to create Shortcuts that can accept input and output so that they can be automated or scripted further.

You’ll have challenges with this too but you can get something by working with the three top labs’ models. Tried on Arena.ai and sent any errors back (in a personal effort to further iOS accessibility, but I digress).

Wonderful project, thank you Cherri!

Could you explain more about how the signing setup works?

(That's what held me back most for spending more effort on shortcuts.)

From the repo, it signs natively on macOS and falls back to a cloud signing server (shortcut-signing-server). That fallback matters -- without macOS you would have to reverse-engineer Apple signing format yourself, and it changes across iOS versions. The hosted signing server is really what makes the whole cross-platform toolchain viable.

Apple had the same typo at WWDC 2018: https://devdude.me/blimg/wwdc18Keynote/shortcutsApp.png

While it's not in quite the same product category, a name change might be in order; this is uncomfortably close to CHERI (cf. https://cheri-alliance.org/).

Should we rename fruit as well just in case?

What you're doing is visual programming. On its own there isn't anything wrong with it. However, specifically with Shortcuts it's not very pleasant for anything complex.

I had a full garden automation running on shortcuts, but it was extreme hard to maintain and improve due to "editor" being so bare bones.

You can definitely have Claude work with cherri files.

Cherri has almost every action you can find in the Shortcuts app, easy to use, and easy to create Shortcuts that can accept input and output so that they can be automated or scripted further.

Wonderful project, thank you Cherri!

Apple had the same typo at WWDC 2018: https://devdude.me/blimg/wwdc18Keynote/shortcutsApp.png

Should we rename fruit as well just in case?

Thanks for sharing. By the editor being bare bones do you mean some missing feature might change your mind about using it, or do you find the text-based editor much more comfortable?

I wonder if https://crates.io/crates/apple-codesign is sufficient to codesign these. Apple usually re-uses these sort of things.

Thanks for sharing. By the editor being bare bones do you mean some missing feature might change your mind about using it, or do you find the text-based editor much more comfortable?

I wonder if https://crates.io/crates/apple-codesign is sufficient to codesign these. Apple usually re-uses these sort of things.

Cherri

Cherri (pronounced cherry) is a Shortcuts programming language that compiles directly to a valid runnable Shortcut.

The primary goal is to make it practical to create large Shortcut projects (within the limitations of Shortcuts) and maintain them long term.

🌟 Top Features

🖥️ Laptop/Desktop-based development (CLI, VSCode extension, macOS app)
🎓 Easy to learn and syntax similar to other languages
🐞 1-1 translation to Shortcut actions as much as possible to make debugging easier
🥾 Half-bootstrapped: Most actions and types are written in the language
💻 Import actions on your Mac
📦 Package manager: Remote Git repo-based package manager built in, allowing for automatic inclusion and updates.
🪄 No magic variables syntax, they're constants instead
🪶 Optimized to create as small as possible Shortcuts and reduce memory usage at runtime
#️⃣ Include files within others for large Shortcut projects
🔧 Define actions with type checking, enums, optionals, default values, raw identifiers, and raw keys.
🔄 Define functions to run within their own scope at the top of your Shortcut to reduce duplicate actions.
📋 Copy-paste actions automatically
🥩 Enter action identifier and parameters manually using Raw Actions.
❓ Define import questions
📇 Generate VCards for menus
📄 Embed files in base64
🔀 Convert Shortcuts from an iCloud link with the --import= option
🔢 Type system and type inference
🔏 Signs using macOS, falls back on HubSign or another server that uses scaxyz/shortcut-signing-server.

Resources

🍒 Cherri VSCode Extension
🛝 Playground - Try out Cherri on any platform, preview the result, and export signed Shortcuts
🖥️ macOS IDE - Defines Cherri file type, write and build Shortcuts on Mac with a GUI
📄 Documentation - Learn Cherri or how to contribute
🔍 Glyph Search - Search glyphs you can use in Cherri!
❓ FAQ

Installation

You can install Cherri by downloading the latest release or via the Homebrew or Nix package managers:

Install via Homebrew

If you have Homebrew installed, you can run:

Add Tap:

brew tap electrikmilk/cherri

Install:

brew install electrikmilk/cherri/cherri

Install via Nix

If you have Nix installed, you can run:

nix profile install github:electrikmilk/cherri

Alternatively, you can use nix-direnv to get an isolated, effortless dev environment where cherri is available based on which directory you're in. Then you would use_flake and add Cherri to flake.nix:

{
  inputs.cherri.url = "github:electrikmilk/cherri";


  { # outputs.packages.${system}.default = pkgs.mkShell etc - omitted for brevity
    buildInputs = [
      inputs.cherri.packages.${system}.cherri
    ]
  }
}

Then run direnv allow in the directory with the flake.nix file.

Usage

cherri file.cherri

Run cherri without any arguments to see all options and usage. For development, use the --debug (or -d) option to print stack traces, debug information, and output a .plist file.

Why another Shortcuts language?

Because it's fun :)

Some languages have been abandoned, don't work well, or no longer work. I don't want Shortcuts languages to die. There should be more, not less.

Plus, some stability comes with this project being on macOS and not iOS, and I'm not aware of another Shortcuts language with macOS as its platform other than Buttermilk.

Community

Credits

Reference

Inspiration

Go syntax
Ruby syntax
ScPL
Buttermilk
Jelly

The original Workflow app assigned a code name to each release. Cherri is named after the second-to-last update "Cherries" (also cherry is one of my favorite flavors).

This project started on October 5, 2022.

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