Apple’s Shortcuts app can be incredibly powerful, but building automations often requires patience and trial and error. A new AI-powered tool — Shortcuts Playground — aims to simplify the process by letting you create shortcuts on your iPhone or Mac with natural-language prompts.
The free and open source app requires Codex or Claude Code to work.
Shortcuts Playground uses AI to simplify iPhone automations
Apple added the Shortcuts app to the iPhone with iOS 12. It integrates with Siri and, if you have the patience and knowledge, you can build some incredibly powerful automations.
Shortcuts has a steep learning curve and requires a fair amount of technical know-how. As a result, despite years of updates and improvements, the app still hasn’t gained widespread popularity among iPhone users.
MacStories Federico Viticci is solving this problem using AI and his new tool: Shortcuts Playground. It allows you to create any shortcut for your iPhone or Mac using natural language.
Unfortunately, the tool itself is not as straightforward to use. You must have Codex or Claude Code and install the relevant plugin. Thankfully, the entire process is properly documented on the tool’s GitHub page. And if you already know how to use Codex or Claude Code, this should be a breeze.
Once you get past the initial hurdle, just type in the kind of shortcut you want to create and the tool will do the rest. After that, you can directly import the created shortcut into the Shortcuts app.
Always check the generated shortcut
Viticci notes that the generated shortcut may not always be accurate. But it should get you almost there, only requiring manual tweaks and checks in some cases.
If you’ve always wanted to create automations on your iPhone or Mac but could never figure out how the Shortcuts app works, Shortcuts Playground should help.
Apple reportedly plans to integrate AI into the Shortcuts app in iOS 27, offering a Shortcuts Playground-like experience that lets users create automations using natural language directly within the app.
Rajesh has been writing about consumer technology for over a decade, with a strong focus on iPhones, Macs and Apple’s ecosystem. He enjoys digging into Apple software updates, hardware changes, and discovering new Mac apps that make work faster and more enjoyable.
