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feat: Add macOS quick actions installer - #30

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a1594834522-coder merged 3 commits into
memorylake-ai:mainfrom
a1594834522-coder:feat/macos-quick-actions
Sep 11, 2026
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feat: Add macOS quick actions installer#30
a1594834522-coder merged 3 commits into
memorylake-ai:mainfrom
a1594834522-coder:feat/macos-quick-actions

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@a1594834522-coder a1594834522-coder commented Sep 11, 2026

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Summary

One command installs three system-wide gestures on top of the CLI, with nothing asked of the user: ⌃⌥⌘S saves the selected text in any app as a message in a "macOS clips" conversation (the server turns it into memory), ⌃⌥⌘L searches the workspace for the selected text and shows the results in a dialog, and a Finder right-click item uploads files into a project picked from a list. The installer resolves the actor from the API key, the workspace from what the CLI is set to, and finds or creates the project and conversation by custom-id, so re-running it is idempotent and --uninstall removes everything client-side. Only tools shipped with macOS are used (zsh, osascript, PlistBuddy, shasum), so it works on a Mac that has nothing but the CLI.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/memorylake-ai/memorylake-cli/main/scripts/install-macos-quick-actions.sh | sh

Built by doing it by hand first on one machine for an afternoon; what went wrong there is baked in:

  • Without --projects the search API only looks at the actor's personal facts, never the projects, so the search action passes every project in the workspace. (search --help says the default is "every project" — it is not. Separate issue worth filing.)
  • Notifications are unreliable feedback: Focus mode hides them, banners last five seconds, and Automator's cold start adds one to three seconds of silence. People pressed twice and stored duplicates. A pop sound confirms the shortcut was received, a chime confirms success, and the message custom-id is derived from the text and the hour so a double press stores nothing twice.
  • Apps reserve shortcuts for themselves (DingTalk takes ⌃⌥⌘F; ⌘Z is undo everywhere), so the defaults are ⌃⌥⌘S / ⌃⌥⌘L and --save-key / --search-key rebind.
  • Dialogs opened from a background process land behind the frontmost window unless System Events is activated first.
  • A Finder quick action needs inputTypeIdentifier and serviceInputTypeIdentifier both set to fileSystemObject, plus a FinderActive entry in the pbs preferences, or it reports "there was a problem with the service input" or never appears in the menu.
  • defaults write cannot take pbs keys (they start with a parenthesis, which it reads as an old-style array), so the installer edits an exported copy with PlistBuddy and imports it back.

Changes

  • scripts/install-macos-quick-actions.sh: POSIX sh installer. Flags --project, --save-key, --search-key, --lang zh|en, --source, --uninstall, each with a MEMORYLAKE_QA_* variable. Writes the Automator bundles by hand, the runtime config, and the shortcut registrations; one pbs -flush at the end.
  • scripts/quick-actions/save.sh: appends the selection via conv msg append with a content-derived custom-id, retries once with --parent after a 409.
  • scripts/quick-actions/search.sh: search across every project, results in a dialog with a copy button.
  • scripts/quick-actions/upload.sh: lib upload each file, then one proj doc import into the chosen project; folders are skipped and reported.
  • scripts/quick-actions/json.js: JSON helper on osascript's JavaScript runtime (get, lines, find, plus the search and import formatters), since macOS ships neither jq nor a guaranteed python3.
  • README.md: "macOS quick actions" section under Install.
  • .github/workflows/ci.yml: the new installer joins the shellcheck -s sh step.

Test plan

  • shellcheck -s sh scripts/install-macos-quick-actions.sh clean
  • Fresh install on macOS 15 from a checkout: actor, workspace, project and conversation resolved with no prompt; three .workflow bundles and pbs entries written
  • ⌃⌥⌘S in Chrome, Notes, DingTalk and Xcode stores a message; a second press within the hour returns the same message id
  • ⌃⌥⌘L shows a dialog with facts from every project; "Copy results" fills the clipboard
  • Finder → Quick Actions → Upload on one file: uploaded, imported into the chosen project, summary notification; a folder in the selection is skipped and reported
  • --uninstall leaves no bundle, no pbs entry and no ~/.memorylake/quick-actions; reinstall restores all three
  • Language detection picks zh on a Chinese system; --lang en overrides
  • Install through curl | sh from the merged main URL (the default --source points there, so this can only be checked after merge)

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

a1594834522-coder and others added 3 commits September 11, 2026 17:52
@a1594834522-coder @claude
feat: Add macOS quick actions installer
228a803 
One command installs three system-wide gestures on top of the CLI, with
nothing asked of the user:

- ⌃⌥⌘S on selected text appends it to a "macOS clips" conversation, which
  the server turns into memory in the background.
- ⌃⌥⌘L on selected text searches the workspace and shows the results in a
  dialog, with a copy button.
- Right-click a file in Finder → Quick Actions → Upload to MemoryLake
  uploads it to the Library and imports it into a project picked from a
  list.

The installer resolves the actor from the API key, the workspace from what
the CLI is set to, and finds or creates a project ("MemoryLake Quick
Actions", custom-id macos-quick-actions) and the clips conversation, so
re-running it is idempotent. It writes the Automator bundles by hand and
registers the shortcuts through the pbs preferences with PlistBuddy, since
`defaults write` cannot take keys that start with a parenthesis. Only
tools shipped with macOS are used: zsh, osascript (JavaScript for JSON),
PlistBuddy, shasum.

Lessons from doing this by hand first, baked in:

- Without --projects the search API only looks at the actor's personal
  facts, so the search action passes every project in the workspace.
- Notifications are unreliable feedback (Focus mode, five-second banners,
  Automator's cold start), which made people press twice. A pop sound
  confirms receipt, a chime success, and the message custom-id is derived
  from the text and the hour so a double press stores nothing twice.
- Apps reserve shortcuts for themselves (DingTalk takes ⌃⌥⌘F; ⌘Z is undo
  everywhere), so the defaults avoid those and --save-key/--search-key
  rebind.
- The AppleScript dialogs are opened from a background process and land
  behind the frontmost window unless System Events is activated first.
- A Finder quick action needs both inputTypeIdentifier and
  serviceInputTypeIdentifier set to fileSystemObject, and its FinderActive
  entry, or it reports "there was a problem with the service input" / never
  shows up in the menu.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@a1594834522-coder @claude
Leave the README alone
697b12b 
The installer documents itself in its header comment; the README section
was not needed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@a1594834522-coder @claude
Quiet shellcheck SC2015 in the quick actions installer
a6b4d9b 
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@a1594834522-coder
a1594834522-coder merged commit 05227d0 into memorylake-ai:main Sep 11, 2026
5 of 6 checks passed
@a1594834522-coder a1594834522-coder mentioned this pull request Sep 14, 2026
Merged
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a1594834522-coder added a commit that referenced this pull request Sep 14, 2026
@a1594834522-coder @claude
fix: Set a UTF-8 locale for the quick actions; open search results in…
960b17e 
… TextEdit (#31)

## Summary

Two problems found on the first day of real use of the macOS quick
actions (#30). Every string in the search dialog rendered as mojibake on
a Chinese-language Mac: services run with no locale variables, zsh
therefore slices by byte, `${query:0:60}` could cut a character in half,
and osascript reacts to one invalid byte by decoding the whole script
text in the system legacy encoding (GB18030). The generated `config.sh`
now exports `LANG=en_US.UTF-8` when nothing is set. And the dialog was
the wrong control for results — `display dialog` text cannot be
selected, so copying one line meant the "copy everything" button.
Results now open as a text file in TextEdit, where any part can be
selected and ⌘W dismisses it.

## Changes

- **`scripts/install-macos-quick-actions.sh`**: the generated
`config.sh` exports a UTF-8 `LANG` when the environment has none, with a
comment on why; the two button strings are gone from the message tables.
- **`scripts/quick-actions/search.sh`**: writes the results to
`~/Library/Caches/memorylake-quick-actions/search-<timestamp>.txt`
(header: query and time) and opens it with `open -e`; files older than a
day are deleted on the next search.

## Test plan

- [x] Reproduced: `env -i` shell with `__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=…:0x19:…`
and a byte-truncated Chinese string → osascript renders the whole script
as GB18030 mojibake; with `LANG=en_US.UTF-8` zsh slices by character and
the output is correct
- [x] Reinstalled from a checkout; `config.sh` carries the export
- [x] ⌃⌥⌘L from a Chinese-language account via the real service:
TextEdit opens with correct Chinese, individual lines selectable
- [x] Same run under `env -i HOME PATH
__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F5:0x19:0x34` (the service's environment)
with a 40-character Chinese query
- [x] `shellcheck -s sh` clean

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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