Create Alfred workflows with ease

Highlights

• Easy input↔output.
• Config and cache handling built-in.
• Fetching remote files with optional caching.
• Publish your workflow to npm.
• Automatic update notifications.
• Easily testable workflows.
• Finds the node binary.
• Presents uncaught exceptions and unhandled Promise rejections to the user.
  No need to manually .catch() top-level promises.

Prerequisites

You need Node.js 4+ and Alfred 3 with the paid Powerpack upgrade.

Install

$ npm install --save alfy

Usage

Create a new Alfred workflow and add a Script Filter with the following script:

./node_modules/.bin/run-node index.js "$1"

We can't call node directly as GUI apps on macOS doesn't inherit the $PATH.

In the workflow directory, create a index.js file, import alfy, and do your thing.

Tip: you can use generator-alfred to scaffold out an alfy based workflow.

Example

Here we fetch some JSON from a placeholder API and present matching items to the user:

const alfy = require('alfy');

alfy.fetch('jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts').then(data => {
    const items = alfy
        .inputMatches(data, 'title')
        .map(x => ({
            title: x.title,
            subtitle: x.body,
            arg: x.id
        }));

    alfy.output(items);
});

More

Some example usage in the wild: alfred-npms, alfred-emoj, alfred-ng2.

Update notifications

Alfy uses alfred-notifier in the background to show a notification when an update for your workflow is available.

Caching

Alfy offers the possibility of caching data, either with the fetch or directly through the cache object.

An important thing to note is that the cached data gets invalidated automatically when you update your workflow. This offers the flexibility for developers to change the structure of the cached data between workflows without having to worry about invalid older data.

Publish to npm

By adding alfy-init as postinstall and alfy-cleanup as preuninstall script, you can publish your package to npm instead of to Packal. This way, your packages are only one simple npm install command away.

{
  "name": "alfred-unicorn",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "My awesome unicorn workflow",
  "author": {
    "name": "Sindre Sorhus",
    "email": "sindresorhus@gmail.com",
    "url": "sindresorhus.com"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "postinstall": "alfy-init",
    "preuninstall": "alfy-cleanup"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "alfy": "*"
  }
}

Tip: Prefix your workflow with alfred- to make them easy searchable through npm.

You can remove these properties from your info.plist file as they are being added automatically at install time.

After publishing your workflow to npm, your users can easily install or update the workflow.

$ npm install --global alfred-unicorn

Tip: instead of manually updating every workflow yourself, use the alfred-updater workflow to do that for you.

Testing

Workflows can easily be tested with alfy-test. Here is a small example.

import test from 'ava';
import alfyTest from 'alfy-test';

test(async t => {
    const alfy = alfyTest();

    const result = await alfy('workflow input');

    t.deepEqual(result, [
        {
            title: 'foo',
            subtitle: 'bar'
        }
    ]);
});

API

alfy

input

Type: string

Input from Alfred. What the user wrote in the input box.

output(list)

Return output to Alfred.

list

Type: Array

List of Object with any of the supported properties.

Example:

alfy.output([{
    title: 'Unicorn'
}, {
    title: 'Rainbow'
}]);

matches(input, list, [item])

Returns an Array of items in list that case-insensitively contains input.

alfy.matches('Corn', ['foo', 'unicorn']);
//=> ['unicorn']

input

Type: string

Text to match against the list items.

list

Type: Array

List to be matched against.

item

Type: string Function

By default it will match against the list items.

Specify a string to match against an object property:

const list = [{
    title: 'foo'
}, {
    title: 'unicorn'
}];

alfy.matches('Unicorn', list, 'title');
//=> [{title: 'unicorn'}]

Or nested property:

const list = [{
    name: {
        first: 'John',
        last: 'Doe'
    }
}, {
    name: {
        first: 'Sindre',
        last: 'Sorhus'
    }
}];

alfy.matches('sindre', list, 'name.first');
//=> [{name: {first: 'Sindre', last: 'Sorhus'}}]

Specify a function to handle the matching yourself. The function receives the list item and input, both lowercased, as arguments, and is expected to return a boolean whether it matches:

const list = ['foo', 'unicorn'];

// here we do an exact match
// `Foo` matches the item since it's lowercased for you
alfy.matches('Foo', list, (item, input) => item === input);
//=> ['foo']

inputMatches(list, [item])

Same as matches(), but with alfy.input as input.

log(text)

text

Type: string

Text to be logged to the debug panel. Only logs when alfred.debug is true, so not to interfere with the normal output.

error(err)

Display an error or error message in Alfred.

Note: You don't need to .catch() top-level promises. Alfy handles that for you.

err

Type: Error string

Error or error message to be displayed.

fetch(url, [options])

Returns a Promise that returns the body of the response.

url

Type: string

URL to fetch.

options

Type: Object

Any of the got options.

json

Type: boolean
Default: true

Parse response body with JSON.parse and set accept header to application/json.

maxAge

Type: number

Number of milliseconds this request should be cached.

transform

Type: Function

Transform the response before it gets cached.

alfy.fetch('https://api.foo.com', {
    transform: body => {
        body.foo = 'bar';
        return body;
    }
})

You can also return a Promise.

const xml2js = require('xmls2js');
const pify = require('pify');

const parseString = pify(xml2js.parseString);

alfy.fetch('https://api.foo.com', {
    transform: body => parseString(body)
})

config

Type: Object

Persist config data.

Exports a conf instance with the correct config path set.

Example:

alfy.config.set('unicorn', '🦄');

alfy.config.get('unicorn');
//=> '🦄'

cache

Type: Object

Persist cache data.

Exports a modified conf instance with the correct cache path set.

Example:

alfy.cache.set('unicorn', '🦄');

alfy.cache.get('unicorn');
//=> '🦄'

maxAge

The set method of this instance accepts an optional third argument where you can provide a maxAge option. maxAge is the number of milliseconds the value is valid in the cache.

Example:

const delay = require('delay');

alfy.cache.set('foo', 'bar', {maxAge: 5000});

alfy.cache.get('foo');
//=> 'bar'

// Wait 5 seconds
await delay(5000);

alfy.cache.get('foo');
//=> undefined

debug

Type: boolean

Whether the user currently has the workflow debugger open.

icon

Type: Object
Keys: info warning error alert like delete

Get various default system icons.

The most useful ones are included as keys. The rest you can get with icon.get(). Go to /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources in Finder to see them all.

Example:

console.log(alfy.icon.error);
//=> '/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/AlertStopIcon.icns'

console.log(alfy.icon.get('Clock'));
//=> '/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/Clock.icns'

meta

Type: Object

Example:

{
    name: 'Emoj',
    version: '0.2.5',
    uid: 'user.workflow.B0AC54EC-601C-479A-9428-01F9FD732959',
    bundleId: 'com.sindresorhus.emoj'
}

alfred

Type: Object

Alfred metadata.

version

Example: '3.0.2'

Find out which version the user is currently running. This may be useful if your workflow depends on a particular Alfred version's features.

theme

Example: 'alfred.theme.yosemite'

Current theme used.

themeBackground

Example: 'rgba(255,255,255,0.98)'

If you're creating icons on the fly, this allows you to find out the color of the theme background.

themeSelectionBackground

Example: 'rgba(255,255,255,0.98)'

The color of the selected result.

themeSubtext

Example: 3

Find out what subtext mode the user has selected in the Appearance preferences.

Usability note: This is available so developers can tweak the result text based on the user's selected mode, but a workflow's result text should not be bloated unnecessarily based on this, as the main reason users generally hide the subtext is to make Alfred look cleaner.

data

Example: '/Users/sindresorhus/Library/Application Support/Alfred 3/Workflow Data/com.sindresorhus.npms'

Recommended location for non-volatile data. Just use alfy.data which uses this path.

cache

Example: '/Users/sindresorhus/Library/Caches/com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-3/Workflow Data/com.sindresorhus.npms'

Recommended location for volatile data. Just use alfy.cache which uses this path.

preferences

Example: '/Users/sindresorhus/Dropbox/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences'

This is the location of the Alfred.alfredpreferences. If a user has synced their settings, this will allow you to find out where their settings are regardless of sync state.

preferencesLocalHash

Example: 'adbd4f66bc3ae8493832af61a41ee609b20d8705'

Non-synced local preferences are stored within Alfred.alfredpreferences under …/preferences/local/${preferencesLocalHash}/.

Users

Alfred workflows using Alfy

• alfred-emoj - Find relevant emoji from text
• alfred-npms - Search for npm packages with npms.io
• alfred-ng2 - Search for Angular 2 API references
• alfred-react-native - Access the React Native documentation
• alfred-hl - Syntax highlight code in the clipboard
• alfred-workflow-docs-elastic - Search the Elastic.co documentation
• alfredinary - Capture screenshots and upload to Cloudinary

Related

• alfred-simple - Simple theme for Alfred (Used in the screenshots)
• alfred-updater - Workflow updater
• alfred-notifier - Update notifications for your workflow
• generator-alfred - Scaffold out an Alfred workflow

Created by

• Sindre Sorhus
• Sam Verschueren

License

MIT © Sindre Sorhus