Agenda Shortcuts and Reference

[mekentosj]

A quick intro to App Shortcuts

App Shortcuts are ways to quickly get one or more tasks done in Agenda through the Shortcuts app. By combining multiple Agenda Shortcuts, optionally with those from other apps you can create and automate your workflows. From the simple opening of a specific note from the Home Screen of your iPad, triggering a new note after a double-tap on the back of your phone, to complex workflows that grab all the things you need to do today from different apps and creates a new project in one tap. It’s all possible using Shortcuts, and they’re not only available through the Shortcuts app, but also using Siri and Spotlight.

You find the list of Agenda shortcuts if you tap the plus button in the Shortcuts app, then select Apps and tap Agenda in the list of apps.

Tip: Read and learn more about Shortcuts and how to use the Shortcuts app in Apple’s Shortcuts User Guide

Overview Shortcuts

Open Overview

• Shows an Overview in Agenda, selecting it in the sidebar
  Parameters
• parameter: Overview
  Result
• result parameter: Overview (opens the overview in Agenda)

Category Shortcuts

Add New Category

• Adds a new project category, optionally as subcategory of an existing category.
  Parameters
• parameter: Title
• parameter (optional): Parent Category
  Result
• result parameter: Category (holds the newly created Category)

Project Shortcuts

Get Selected Projects

• Returns the currently selected projects (if any) in the Agenda sidebar
  Parameters
• parameter: Note
  Result
• result parameter: an array of Projects

Find Project

• Finds one or more projects based on the filter criteria provided (or all projects if no criteria are provided). Optionally limited to a certain number of projects.
  Parameters
• parameter (optional): Title
• parameter (optional): Is Archived or Is Not Archived
• parameter (optional): Category
  New in Agenda 16
• parameter (optional): Identifier
  Sort options
• parameter (optional): Title
• parameter (optional): Is Archived
  Result
• result parameter: Projects (holds the found Projects)

Open Project

• Shows a project in Agenda, selecting it in the sidebar
  Parameters
• parameter: Note
  Result
• result parameter: Project (opens the project in Agenda)

Add New Project

• Adds a new project to the category of choice, or to Other Projects if none is provided.
  Parameters
• parameter: Title
• parameter: Category
  New in Agenda 16
• parameter: Sort Order
  Result
• result parameter: Project (holds the newly created Project)
• result action (optional): open the project in Agenda

Note Shortcuts

Get Selected Notes

• Returns the currently selected notes (if any) in Agenda
  Parameters
• parameter: Note
  Result
• result parameter: an array of Notes

Find Note

• Finds one or more notes based on the filter criteria provided (or all notes if no criteria are provided). Optionally limited to a certain number of notes.
  Parameters
• parameter (optional): Title
• parameter (optional): Project
  New in Agenda 16
• parameter (optional): Identifier
  New in Agenda 16.1
• parameter (optional): On the Agenda or Not On the Agenda
• parameter (optional): Date
• parameter (optional): End Date
• parameter (optional): Completed or Not Completed
• parameter (optional): Last Edited
  Sort options
• parameter (optional): Title
  New in Agenda 16.1
• parameter (optional): Project
• parameter (optional): On the Agenda
• parameter (optional): Date
• parameter (optional): End Date
• parameter (optional): Last Edited
  Result
• result parameter: Notes (holds the found Notes)

Open Note

• Shows a note in Agenda, selecting its project in the sidebar
  Parameters
• parameter: Note
  Result
• result parameter: Note (opens the note in Agenda)

Add New Note

• Adds a new note to the project of choice.
  Parameters
• parameter: Title
• parameter: Project
  New in Agenda 16
• parameter (optional): Text
• parameter (optional): On the Agenda
• parameter (optional): Date (start date of the note)
• parameter (optional): End Date (only if a Date is set, can be used to set a date range)
• parameter (optional): Event Title (to link a calendar event. Setting the start date in the `Date field can help disambiguate events with the same title)
• parameter (optional): Pinned
• parameter (optional): Collapsed
• parameter (optional): Completed
• parameter (optional): Template (used to create the new note)
• parameter (optional): Attachment (a file to add as a attachment to the note)
  Result
• result parameter: Note (holds the newly created Note)
• result action (optional): open the note in Agenda

Append to Note

• Adds text to the end of the provided note.
  Parameters
• parameter: Note
• parameter (optional): Text (leave empty if you want to only update one of the below properties)
  New in Agenda 16
• parameter (optional): Title
• parameter (optional): On the Agenda
• parameter (optional): Date (start date of the note)
• parameter (optional): End Date (only if a Date is set, can be used to set a date range)
• parameter (optional): Event Title (to link a calendar event. Setting the start date in the `Date field can help disambiguate events with the same title)
• parameter (optional): Pinned
• parameter (optional): Collapsed
• parameter (optional): Completed
• parameter (optional): Attachment (a file to add as a attachment to the note)
  Result
• result parameter: Note (holds the edited Note)
• result action (optional): open the note in Agenda

Get Note Text

• Returns the text of the provided note as Rich Text.
  Parameters
• parameter: Note
• parameter (optional): Include Heading (whether the text should also include the title and date of the note)
  Result
• result parameter: Text (holds the rich text of the Note)

Get Selected Text

New in Agenda 16.1

• Returns the text currently selected in the app, or the text of the selected note if no specific text range its selected.
  Parameters
• parameter: None
  Result
• result parameter: Text (holds the rich text of selected part of the current Note, or all text of the selected note if no specific text range its selected.)

Get Note Markdown

• Returns the text of the provided note in markdown format.
  Parameters
• parameter: Note
  Result
• result parameter: Text (holds the text of the Note in markdown format)

Get Note Summary

New in Agenda 16.1

• Returns a summary of the provided note.
  Parameters
• parameter: Criterion (what to summarise the Note on, e.g. Unchecked, Checked, Tagged or Assigned items)
  Result
• result parameter: Text (holds the text of the Note summary)

Combining Shortcuts and x-callback URLs

Agenda also supports a set of x-callback URLs that can be used to automate Agenda. For a complete overview of the supported actions, see the X-callback-url Support and Reference topic. You can use these callbacks also from the Shortcuts app, for example if certain actions are not available through an App Shortcut, you can use an x-callback URL using a URL shortcut like shown here:

Notice that if your variables contain special characters, in this case the content of the clipboard, we first run it through a “URL encode” Shortcut to ensure the resulting x-callback URL is valid.

Tip: For some great examples of how to use x-callback URLs in the Shortcuts app, see how fellow community member @heyscottyj has created a number of daily logging Shortcuts for Agenda that he made available on his website.

[mekentosj]

Example use cases

Run shortcuts with Siri, the Shortcuts app or Siri Suggestions

https://heyscottyj.com

Home Screen Icon Creator: A Shortcut to Create Custom Icons for Apps,...

[ShiJianhui]

I can’t wait to see MacOS version

[mekentosj]

It should be part of macOS 13 Ventura when it ships in October

[karlestes1]

I was trying to set up a shortcuts workflow where I searched for a note using the Find Note shortcut, and passed the result into Get Note Text to extract the body of the note. Each time I called the Get Note Text shortcut though, I was prompted with a list and had to manually select the note I wanted to extract the text from.

Is this the intended behavior for the Get Note Text shortcut? I made sure only one note was being retrieved.

[mekentosj]

No that’s not intended, unfortunately that seems to be a bug in the current implementation, it’s like what you describe in iOS 16 but in the 16.1 beta it seems to now work as it should, so hopefully resolved soon. There’s still the issue where feeding a project from Find Project as filter criteria into Find Note doesn’t work either, also not get in the 16.1 beta. I’ve filed a bug with Apple for this one.

Update: Apple seems to have addressed these issues in the upcoming iOS 16.1 and macOS 13 updates

[Philippe_Bernery]

@mekentosj

It should be part of macOS 13 Ventura when it ships in October

Does it mean it’s available on Mac starting macOS 13? macOS12 does not have those Agenda shortcuts?

[mekentosj]

Correct, they won’t be available in macOS 12 Monterey

[Philippe_Bernery]

Alright, thanks @mekentosj

[Starkrights]

Wow, I’m so excited to see some of this stuff- especially the find-all projects shortcuts!

That said, I’m on iOS agenda 16, but I don’t seem to see all of the shortcuts featured here- or rather, I don’t see most of them on my phone. For whatever reason, the shortcuts app only shows me a few, very specific actions under the agenda app tab, and using the search bar to try and find more actions turns up nothing new.

Edit x3: I was on an old version of iOS 15. As @heyscottyj pointed out, Agenda shortcuts (and a lot of other apps, seemingly) require iOS 16

Old edits

Edit:
Just realized I am actually on a slightly older version of iOS (15.6.1 instead of 16.2) just bc I haven’t updated in a bit. Would that be my issue?

Edit x2:
I’m seeing similarly weird things with other apps- an arbitrary selection of oddly specific actions (eg. message 3 random people in that apps contact list with no mention of the rest of my contacts in that app), with no generic actions listed at all.

Definitely not an agenda issue then. Wonder wtf is going on there. Maybe my old (by apples obsolescence standards at least) phone is just being old. Will update again whenever I do a software update.

[heyscottyj]

It’s not you. The Agenda Shortcuts require iOS 16.

[Starkrights]

Yep, an update to 16 got everything up and running. Didn’t even realize I’d been sitting on iOS 15 that long. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[brandongomez]

Hey all. Getting back into this app after being a long time Bear user. I have a shortcut I’ve setup to automatically create a daily note with some info pulled in from the inter-webs. Works great but I’m wondering if there’s a way to automatically assign the date to the note (the date the shortcut is run). I’m using Add Note and I see a Date field. Wondering if that’s where I could do it. Would it be something formatted like, MMMM.dd.YYYY?

[Uberhosen]

Yes, you are correct. When you click on that Date field, you should be able to insert the Current Date variable. Once you insert the variable, you will be able to format the date however you like.

[brandongomez]

Thanks! Doesn’t seem to work for assigning the date though. That’s a bummer. I tried a couple different formats for the date but, when I run the shortcut, I actually don’t see my date formatting anywhere

[Uberhosen]

I may have misunderstood. Do you want the date to be the title of the note, or do you want to assign it to today?

[brandongomez]

Sorry about that. I want to assign it to today. After my shortcut runs, I have to manually assign the note to today. Would be great if it did it automatically!

[Uberhosen]

No worries - just making sure we’re talking about the same thing. It should work, though. When you get to the Add Note action and click the Date and time field, are you selecting the Current Date variable?

The Date line should look like this

I made a quick little shortcut to test, and my test note came out assigned to today

I did not change the variable from the default format. Hope that helps!

[brandongomez]

Oh geez! Totally missed that I could put in the Current Date variable! Just tested it and it works. Thanks for the help!