macos-service-skill

macos-service

A Claude Code skill that enables Claude to create macOS Quick Actions (Services) programmatically — no Automator GUI needed.

What It Does

When you ask Claude Code to create a Finder right-click action, this skill provides it with:

• The exact .workflow bundle structure and XML plist templates
• Tested patterns for shell scripts running inside Automator (PATH resolution, file handling, user feedback)
• Common gotchas and their solutions (e.g., notifications don't work in Automator — use dialogs instead)
• UTI type reference for file type filtering

The result is a Quick Action that appears in Finder's right-click > Services menu and runs a shell script on the selected files.

Example

"Create a right-click service that converts selected images to WebP format"

Claude will build and install a .workflow bundle to ~/Library/Services/ that accepts image files, runs an ffmpeg/cwebp conversion, and shows a dialog when done.

Installation

Copy the skills/macos-service/ directory into your Claude Code plugins:

cp -r skills/macos-service ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/claude-plugins-official/plugins/macos-service/skills/

Or clone the repo directly into your plugins directory:

cd ~/.claude/plugins/marketplaces/claude-plugins-official/plugins
git clone https://github.com/bfgpollara/macos-service-skill.git macos-service

Skill Structure

skills/macos-service/
  SKILL.md                         # Main skill instructions
  references/
    workflow-template.md            # Complete XML templates for .workflow bundles

Trigger Phrases

The skill activates when you mention:

• "create a right-click action"
• "Finder service"
• "Quick Action"
• "add to right-click menu"
• ".workflow bundle"
• "macOS service"

Requirements

• macOS (tested on macOS 15 Sequoia)
• Claude Code CLI