App Intents & Services
NowDoing ships seven App Intents and three macOS Services. Together they let you drive tracking from the Shortcuts app, from Spotlight, via Siri, and right inside the context menu of any app — without bringing NowDoing to the foreground.
If you prefer scripts, look at AppleScript or the CLI. The HTTP API for external tools is documented under HTTP API.
App Intents
Section titled “App Intents”The following actions show up in the Shortcuts app, in Spotlight, and in any Shortcuts automation:
| Intent | Parameters | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Start Tracking | Activity | Starts tracking the given activity |
| Stop Tracking | – | Stops the current tracking session |
| Toggle Pause | – | Pauses / resumes the running entry |
| Log Entry | Activity, duration, note (optional) | Adds a back-dated entry |
| Open Timesheet | – | Brings the timesheet window to front |
| Open Settings | – | Brings the settings window to front |
| Today’s Hours | – | Returns the day’s tracked hours as a number |
Compose them freely — e.g. “when I arrive at the office: Start Tracking → Coding” via a Shortcuts automation, or a Stream Deck button that fires Toggle Pause.
Voice phrases (App Shortcuts)
Section titled “Voice phrases (App Shortcuts)”For common actions, German and English phrases are pre-defined:
| Phrase | Action |
|---|---|
| ”Start tracking in NowDoing” | Opens activity picker |
| ”Pause NowDoing” | Toggle pause |
| ”Stop tracking in NowDoing” | Stop tracking |
| ”How many hours today in NowDoing” | Reads today’s hours |
| „Starte Tracking in NowDoing” | Activity picker (DE) |
| „Pause NowDoing” / „Stoppe Tracking in NowDoing” | Toggle / stop (DE) |
| „Wie viele Stunden heute in NowDoing” | Today’s hours (DE) |
These phrases work with Siri (when enabled) and in global Spotlight input. Rename or extend them under Shortcuts app → App Shortcuts → NowDoing.
Check availability
Section titled “Check availability”If the intents do not appear, open the Shortcuts app, select App Shortcuts in the sidebar and scroll to NowDoing. macOS sometimes indexes new apps with a delay — a restart resolves it.
macOS Services
Section titled “macOS Services”The context menu of any standard app (Mail, Notes, TextEdit, Safari, …) shows three NowDoing entries under Services whenever text is selected:
“Log as note in NowDoing”
Section titled ““Log as note in NowDoing””Appends the selected text as a note to the most recent entry of your current activity. If no entry exists yet but tracking is running, a small entry with the note is created.
Handy for: ticket descriptions from the browser, Slack quotes, meeting notes.
”Create as new activity”
Section titled “”Create as new activity””Turns the selected text into a new activity. NowDoing first checks case-insensitively whether it already exists and reports back via system notification if so.
”Start tracking”
Section titled “”Start tracking””Looks up an activity with exactly the selected name (case-insensitive) and starts tracking it. If nothing matches, a notification surfaces the problem.
Good for: starting tracking on ticket numbers or task names directly from email, Jira, or your calendar.
Assign keyboard shortcuts
Section titled “Assign keyboard shortcuts”Via System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Services you can bind each service to a custom keystroke.
Sandbox & permissions
Section titled “Sandbox & permissions”Both App Intents and Services run entirely inside the macOS App Sandbox. No additional permissions (Full Disk Access, Accessibility) are required — actions go through the regular macOS interfaces.