Scripting

Two routes, one set of commands: eskele:// URLs, which anything that can open a link can send, and Shortcuts actions, which also reach Spotlight and Siri. Both run the same code, so they cannot come to mean different things.

URLs

URL	Effect
eskele://edge/left	Move the bar to the left, bottom or right edge
eskele://autohide/on	Auto-hide on, off, or toggle — which is what eskele://autohide alone does
eskele://design/classic	Apply the dock, classic, unity or custom design
eskele://reveal	Show or hide an auto-hiding bar, as the reveal shortcut does
eskele://apps-menu	Open the Apps Menu, or close it
eskele://focus	Move the keyboard to the bar, as ⌃⌥⇥ does
eskele://settings	Open Settings
eskele://pin?path=~/Downloads	Pin a file, folder or application by path
eskele://pin?app=com.apple.Safari	Pin an application by its bundle identifier, wherever it is installed
eskele://unpin?app=com.apple.Safari	Unpin, by path or app

From a shell:

open eskele://edge/right

pin and unpin take several items at once — eskele://pin?app=com.apple.mail&path=~/Projects — and a path must be absolute or start with ~, since a URL carries no folder to be relative to. Spaces in a path are written %20.

Your keyboard stays where it was. macOS brings Eskele forward to hand it a URL; once the command has run, the app you were in gets the front back. Only apps-menu, focus and settings, which are for the keyboard, keep it — and give it back when you close them.

A URL Eskele does not understand does nothing. It is noted in the system log rather than shown, since the sender is usually a script with nobody watching.

What a URL cannot do

Any web page can open an eskele:// link. Your browser asks first, but a person clicking Allow may not read the link — so nothing a URL can do quits an application, empties the Trash, sleeps the Mac or touches the system Dock. The worst a hostile link can do is move the bar or pin something, and both are one click from undone.

Shortcuts

Eskele’s actions are under Eskele in the Shortcuts app’s action list:

Action	Takes
Move the Bar	An edge
Set Auto-Hide	On, Off or Toggle
Apply Design	Dock, Classic, Unity or Custom
Show or Hide the Bar	—
Open the Apps Menu	—
Move Focus to the Bar	—

They run with Eskele in the background, so nothing comes forward that you did not ask for. There is no action for pinning: a file Shortcuts hands over can be a copy in a temporary folder rather than the file itself. Use Open URLs with an eskele://pin URL instead, which names the real thing.

Building Eskele yourself

Shortcuts learns an app’s actions from metadata that Xcode’s tools write into the app. make run writes it when Xcode is installed; with only the Command Line Tools it warns and the actions are missing, while everything else, URLs included, works.