⚡ ShortcutsBridge

Run your Apple Shortcuts from ChatGPT — on your own Mac.

ShortcutsBridge is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) connector that lets ChatGPT list, search, and run your Apple Shortcuts. It never uploads your shortcuts to a third party — every action runs on your own Mac through a tiny local agent. The cloud piece is only a stateless relay that shuttles requests between ChatGPT and your Mac.

  ChatGPT  ──OAuth──►  ShortcutsBridge relay  ──job queue──►  shortcuts-agent  ──►  Shortcuts.app
 (connector)          (Vercel, stateless)      (your Mac, polls & executes)     (via the shortcuts CLI)

Your Mac is the only place your shortcuts are ever listed or run. The relay stores only short-lived job payloads and your account record; it never sees a shortcut unless a job is in flight, and jobs expire in seconds.

Because a Shortcut can do almost anything on a Mac or iPhone — control HomeKit, drive apps, run scripts, call web APIs — run_shortcut turns ChatGPT into a trigger for any automation you've already built.

For users — 3 steps

1. Create your account at shortcutsbridge.vercel.app and generate a pairing code.

2. Install the Mac agent (needs Node 18+):

npx shortcuts-agent pair <YOUR-CODE>   # link this Mac to your account
npx shortcuts-agent install            # keep it running on every restart

The first time a given shortcut runs, macOS may ask you to allow it — click OK (once per shortcut). It's per-shortcut consent, not a blanket automation grant.

3. Connect ChatGPT: Settings → Plugins → turn on Developer mode (Security & login) → Create a custom plugin → paste the MCP Server URL https://shortcutsbridge.vercel.app/mcp → Authentication OAuth → sign in & Allow.

That's it. In a new chat: "Search my Apple Shortcuts for anything about focus" or "Run my Morning Briefing shortcut."

Your Mac must be awake with the agent running. npx shortcuts-agent install makes it start automatically at login and restart if it ever crashes.

Managing the agent

npx shortcuts-agent status      # is it paired & reachable?
npx shortcuts-agent logs        # recent activity
npx shortcuts-agent uninstall   # stop auto-start

Related MCP server: mcp-macos-toolkit

What ChatGPT can do

The first three are read-only catalogue lookups. run_shortcut is the only tool that does something — it's open-world (the shortcut can take real-world actions), so ChatGPT confirms with you before running one, and only shortcuts you've already built can run.

Self-hosting

You can run your own relay so nothing depends on the hosted instance.

Prereqs: a Vercel account and a Supabase project (free tiers are fine).

1. Storage — in your Supabase project's SQL editor, run supabase/schema.sql. It creates a tiny Redis-shaped KV + queue surface (nb_* functions) with RLS on.

2. Deploy the server/ directory to Vercel.

3. Set env vars (see server/.env.example):

   • SUPABASE_URL, SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY — your project + service-role key

   • JWT_SECRET — openssl rand -hex 32

4. Verify: curl https://YOUR-APP.vercel.app/api/health → redisConfigured, redisOk, jwtSecretSet all true.

5. Point the agent at it: npx shortcuts-agent pair <CODE> --server https://YOUR-APP.vercel.app.

How it works

• Auth — OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and Dynamic Client Registration (RFC 7591). ChatGPT registers itself, the user signs in on the ShortcutsBridge consent page, and ChatGPT gets a scoped MCP access token. JWTs are HMAC-signed; three kinds (session, agent, mcp) with distinct privileges. Optional email verification via Resend (RESEND_API_KEY); off unless configured, and enforcement is opt-in (REQUIRE_EMAIL_VERIFICATION).

• Relay — MCP tool call → job pushed to jobs:<user> (TTL ≤ the caller's wait window, so an abandoned job can't run late) → the Mac agent (holding a hanging long-poll) is handed the job within ~200ms, executes it, pushes the result → the MCP handler returns it. The long-poll means jobs are delivered on arrival rather than on a fixed interval, so relay overhead is ~300ms instead of ~1s. The agent is considered "online" only while it's actively connected.

• Agent — a dependency-free Node CLI. Tools shell out to the macOS shortcuts command-line tool (shortcuts list, shortcuts run); arguments are passed as argv (never shell-interpolated). A macOS LaunchAgent keeps it alive across logins and crashes.

Repository layout

server/    Vercel functions: OAuth + MCP endpoint + relay        (deploy this)
agent/     shortcuts-agent — the npm-published Mac CLI          (users npx this)
kit/       Browser automations: register the dev-mode connector AND
           fill the OpenAI directory submission (see kit/README.md)
supabase/  schema.sql for self-hosting the storage
test/      end-to-end OAuth + MCP integration test

Development

# server
cd server && cp .env.example .env.local   # fill in, then: vercel dev
# end-to-end test against a live deployment (reads ../.env.local)
node test/e2e-oauth.mjs
# agent unit tests
node --test agent/test-agent-unit.mjs

Security & privacy

• Shortcuts are listed and run only on your Mac. The relay never persists shortcut content — job payloads live in Redis-shaped storage with a short TTL and are deleted on delivery.

• The agent token is stored at ~/.shortcutsbridge-agent.json (mode 600).

• No secrets are committed; see .gitignore and the .env.example files.

• run_shortcut is marked open-world — a shortcut can take real-world actions — so ChatGPT asks before running one. Only shortcuts you've already built can run.

License

MIT © Isaiah Dupree