Interface ShellTag

The shell tag, available as the global $. Runs the template text with /bin/zsh in strict mode (set -euo pipefail), with each interpolated value shell-escaped into the command as a literal word — selected text, file paths, anything: it can never become shell syntax. Requires the script entitlement, and may only be used during the action phase — the same gate, failure rules and result as runShellScript.

const result = await $`date +%A`;
popclip.showText(`Today is ${result}`);
Copy

The template text is used raw: everything between the backticks goes to the shell exactly as written, so backslashes survive ($`grep -c '\.txt'` works) and JavaScript escape sequences are not interpreted. Two consequences: don't put your own quotes around an interpolation (it arrives already quoted), and write shell variables as $VAR rather than ${VAR} (which JavaScript would claim).

Interpolated values may be strings, finite numbers, a ShellScriptResult (spliced as its trimmed stdout, so one command's output feeds the next), or arrays of any of those (spliced as separate words). Anything else throws.

Calling $ with an options object instead returns a configured tag, which can be kept and reused:

const py = $({ interpreter: "python3", quote: JSON.stringify, prefix: null });
const answer = await py`print(${popclip.input.text}.upper())`;
Copy