The AI Chat is an optional, powerful way to work with Shortcuts Toolbox. Many everyday
tasks — running shortcuts, scheduling, and generating reports — can be done just by asking, in
plain English. The app’s core management features work fully on their own; AI simply makes them
faster.
Think of the AI as your personal automation assistant. It knows about all your shortcuts, understands
scheduling, can generate reports and visualizations, and orchestrates
complex multi-step workflows — all through natural conversation. You stay in control of what the AI
can access and execute.
What you can do through chat
Run any shortcut
Just say “Run my Morning Routine shortcut” or “Execute the backup script with input
‘documents’”. The AI handles parameters and shows you the results.
Schedule anything
“Run this every weekday at 9am”, “Remind me to check backups in 2 hours”, or
“Schedule a weekly report every Monday”. Natural language
scheduling — no cron syntax required.
Find & explore shortcuts
“What shortcuts do I have for photos?”, “Show me all shortcuts in my Work
folder”, or “Which shortcuts use the Calendar app?”. The AI helps you discover and
understand your library.
Generate reports & dashboards
Ask for summaries or formatted output. “List all my shortcuts organized by folder” or
“Create a summary of my scheduled tasks”. The AI can render rich HTML output inline.
Analyze dependencies
“What shortcuts does Morning Routine call?”, “Show me orphaned shortcuts”, or
“Which shortcuts would break if I delete this one?”. Understand your shortcut ecosystem
with dependency graphs.
Chain multiple actions
“First run the cleanup script, then if it succeeds, run the backup, and finally send me a
notification”. The AI orchestrates complex workflows in a single conversation.
Use external MCP tools
If you’ve connected external MCP servers, the AI can use those
tools too. “Use the weather service to check tomorrow’s forecast” or combine tools
from multiple sources.
Get help & explanations
“Explain what my Backup shortcut does step by step”, “How do I set up
scheduling?”, or “What’s the difference between
AI Tasks and chat?”. The AI is your built-in documentation.
Example conversations
You
“Fetch my reminders and plot them by impact vs effort on a mobile-friendly
chart”
AI
I’ll run your Get Reminders shortcut and generate an HTML quadrant chart...
Done! Your reminders are now visualized by priority, styled with clean, modern CSS.
You
“Get my calendar for the next week and create a time-blocking summary with
gaps highlighted”
AI
Running Calendar Overview... You have 14 events this week. I’ve created an
HTML dashboard showing your schedule with 3 gaps of 2+ hours highlighted in green — perfect for
deep work.
You
“Every morning at 8am, check my calendar and send me a Pushcut notification
with today’s first meeting”
AI
I’ve scheduled a daily AI task for 8:00 AM that will fetch your calendar and
send a notification with your first meeting. You’ll get alerts like “9:30 AM: Team Standup
in Conference Room B”.
When you ask the AI to build something that should keep refreshing — a daily dashboard, a triage
board — it can turn the conversation into a live, scheduled app
backed by a generation-graph workflow.
Multi-provider support
Choose your preferred AI model for each conversation. Shortcuts Toolbox supports OpenAI,
Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini), Apple's on-device model
(no setup, nothing leaves your Mac), local model servers like Ollama and
LM Studio, and any OpenAI-compatible service such as OpenRouter or Groq.
Switch models anytime — different models may work better for different tasks.
Shortcuts Toolbox relies on tool calling, so each model can be tested from
Settings → AI Providers; models that can't call tools are flagged. Each model's
context limit is shown there too. Small models (like Apple's, which has a 4,096-token context) get a
shorter prompt and load fewer tools, so they suit short requests.
Apple’s on-device model is experimental. It runs entirely on your Mac and needs no account, but its small
context means it handles short, simple requests best. If you haven’t set up any other model, it is used by
default.
Images and PDFs
Paste a screenshot or other image with ⌘V, or attach files with the paperclip. PNG, JPEG,
GIF, WebP, and PDF files up to 25 MB are supported. The model you pick has to understand images or PDFs to use them.
Conversation history
All your conversations are saved. Pick up where you left off and reference past discussions anytime. The AI
maintains context within each conversation, so you can have extended back-and-forth discussions.
Available chat tools
The AI has access to these tools when chatting with you:
Shortcut discovery & execution
list_enabled_shortcuts
Lists all shortcuts available for execution, with names, folders, and descriptions.
run_enabled_shortcut
Execute a specific shortcut by name, optionally passing input parameters.
list_all_shortcuts
List all shortcuts in the system (not hidden from AI), optionally filtered by folder.
list_shortcut_folders
List all folders that contain shortcuts.
get_shortcut_details
Get detailed metadata about a shortcut including its actions and dependencies.
get_shortcut_dependency_graph
Display the dependency graph showing what other shortcuts it
calls and which call it.
AI & automation
perform_task
Perform an AI-powered task using available shortcuts and tools to accomplish a goal.
create_html_page
Create rich HTML reports, dashboards, or visualizations displayed inline in the chat.
Scheduling
list_scheduled_jobs
List all scheduled jobs with their status, timing, and metadata.
request_schedule_shortcut
Schedule a shortcut to run at a specific time, interval, or with a delay.
request_schedule_ai_task
Schedule an AI task to run automatically on a schedule.
request_manage_scheduled_job
Pause, resume, cancel, or immediately run an existing scheduled job.
Settings & maintenance
get_shortcut_ai_settings
Get the current AI settings for a shortcut (visibility, executability, privacy).
request_update_shortcut_ai_settings
Update AI settings for a shortcut (enable/disable, privacy settings, and whether it is exposed as its
own tool via expose_as_own_tool and own_tool_runs_on).
refresh_shortcut_metadata
Refresh cached metadata when you’ve edited a shortcut in Apple Shortcuts.
AI controls
You control exactly what the AI can see and do. For each shortcut, configure:
Visible to AI — Whether the AI knows this shortcut exists
Executable by AI — Whether the AI is allowed to run this shortcut
Private contents — Whether to hide the shortcut’s internal actions from the
AI
Expose as its own tool — Whether the shortcut is also offered to the AI as a
standalone tool named shortcut_ plus its name, with typed arguments from its Input Schema.
Off by default. When Run on remote device is on, a Runs on choice
(Server, Remote device, or Either) decides where that tool runs the shortcut. See
Shortcut Management for how schemas and this setting work
This gives you fine-grained control over privacy and what automations the AI can help with.
