AppleScript Automation

Otty is scriptable with AppleScript, so you can drive it from osascript, Automator, Shortcuts (via Run AppleScript), or any automation that already talks to a terminal. The dictionary is intentionally drop-in compatible with Terminal.app's most common verbs — most scripts written for Apple's Terminal work by changing the application name to "Otty".

There's nothing to install or enable: scripting ships in the app.

Availability

AppleScript support requires Otty 1.2.0 or later.

Running a command — do script

The core verb is do script. With no target it opens a new window and runs the command there, exactly like Terminal.app:

tell application "Otty"
    activate
    do script "cd ~/Projects/otty && cargo build"
end tell

Run in an existing window or tab by passing in:

tell application "Otty"
    do script "git status" in front window          -- the window's selected tab
    do script "npm test" in tab 2 of window 1
end tell

do script returns the tab it ran in, so you can keep a handle to it:

tell application "Otty"
    set buildTab to do script "make release"
    set custom title of buildTab to "Release Build"
end tell

Reading what's on screen

Each tab exposes its state as properties:

Property	Meaning
contents	The text currently visible on screen
history	The full scrollback plus the visible screen
busy	true while a foreground process (not the shell) is running
processes	Names of the processes running in the tab
tty	The tty device path, e.g. /dev/ttys003
number of rows / number of columns	The grid size
working directory	The shell's current directory
id	The session id (also a selector for the otty CLI)

tell application "Otty"
    set t to do script "ls -la"
    delay 0.5
    return contents of t            -- grab the visible output
end tell

A common pattern — run a command, wait for it to finish, then read the result:

tell application "Otty"
    set t to do script "sleep 2; echo done"
    repeat while busy of t
        delay 0.2
    end repeat
    return history of t
end tell

Titles, selection, and windows

tell application "Otty"
    -- Rename a tab (pins the title against shell updates).
    set custom title of selected tab of front window to "Deploy"

    -- Restore the shell-provided title.
    set custom title of selected tab of front window to ""

    -- Bring a background tab forward.
    set selected of tab 3 of window 1 to true

    -- Standard window verbs work too.
    count windows
    get name of front window
end tell

Migrating from Terminal.app

Most Terminal scripts need only the application name changed:

-- Before
tell application "Terminal" to do script "uptime"

-- After
tell application "Otty" to do script "uptime"

The do script semantics, the tab object with contents / history / busy / processes / tty / custom title, and selected tab of a window all match Terminal.app's behavior.

Security

do script is allowed by default — automation should just work. To keep scripts from silently reading or driving sensitive panes, two guards apply:

• SSH sessions and privileged (sudo) sessions are protected. do script into them is refused, and contents / history return empty.

This mirrors the same protection used by the otty CLI (pane send-keys / pane capture). If you intentionally want automation to reach remote or privileged panes, set in your config:

ipc-allow-sensitive-sessions = true

Prefer the shell?

If you script from a shell rather than AppleScript, the otty CLI covers the same ground — otty open, otty tab new, otty pane send-keys, and otty pane capture — and works cross-platform. Use the $OTTY_PANE_ID variable Otty exports into every pane to target the pane your script runs in (rather than the focused one) — see $TERM and Identification.