How do I build an App Shortcut
Asked on 06/13/2025
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To build an App Shortcut, you need to use the App Intents framework, which allows you to expose key functionalities of your app across the system. Here's a general overview of the steps involved:
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Define an App Shortcuts Provider: Your app should define a single provider containing all your app shortcuts. This is a static member that holds a list of app shortcuts.
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Create an Intent: An app shortcut wraps an intent, which is an instance (not a type) that performs a specific action. You can pre-fill some or all parameters of the intent to make it specific.
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Configure Phrases and Visuals: For Siri and Spotlight, you need to provide a list of phrases that include the app name. For visual displays like Spotlight, you should also provide a title and an image.
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Automatic Registration: The App Intents framework automatically detects and registers your app shortcuts, making them available as soon as the app is installed. No additional registration code is needed.
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Use in Spotlight and Siri: Once set up, your app shortcuts can be accessed via Siri by speaking the trigger phrases or through Spotlight search. They can also be configured to run from the Action button or Apple Pencil Squeeze.
For a detailed walkthrough, you can refer to the session Get to know App Intents (08:52) and Bring your app’s core features to users with App Intents (20:14) from WWDC.
Get to know App Intents
Learn about the App Intents framework and its increasingly critical role within Apple’s developer platforms. We’ll take you through a ground-up introduction of the core concepts: intents, entities, queries, and much more. You’ll learn how these pieces fit together and let you integrate your app through Apple’s devices, from software features like Spotlight and Shortcuts to hardware features like the Action button. We’ll also walk through how App Intents is your app’s gateway to integrating with Apple Intelligence going forward.
Bring your app’s core features to users with App Intents
Learn the principles of the App Intents framework, like intents, entities, and queries, and how you can harness them to expose your app’s most important functionality right where people need it most. Find out how to build deep integration between your app and the many system features built on top of App Intents, including Siri, controls and widgets, Apple Pencil, Shortcuts, the Action button, and more. Get tips on how to build your App Intents integrations efficiently to create the best experiences in every surface while still sharing code and core functionality.
Develop for Shortcuts and Spotlight with App Intents
Learn about how building App Intents that make actions available and work best with the new features in Shortcuts and Spotlight on Mac. We’ll show you how your actions combine in powerful ways with the new Apple Intelligence actions available in the Shortcuts app. We’ll deep-dive into how the new “Use Model” action works, and how it interacts with your app’s entities. And we’ll discuss how to use the App Intents APIs to make your actions available in Spotlight.