Dynamic variables

A replacement is a fixed string unless it holds a name in {{$…}}, which is filled in afresh every time it fires — the date, a random number, a UUID, the clipboard, what you have selected.

The same grammar works in three other places: Type Text, Show Alert and Open URL. In a URL the substituted values are percent-encoded and the template's own ?, & and : are left alone, so a variable can safely supply a query value — or the whole address.

Two names are worth knowing before the rest:

• {{$clipboardText}} — what is on the pasteboard. Never written to history, whatever the pasteboard says about itself, because that is where one-time codes and session URLs end up.
• {{$selectedText}} — what is selected in the front application. Read through Accessibility where the app exposes it, and through a synthesised ⌘C where it does not. It stands in actions but not in snippets: a snippet fires mid-word, when nothing is selected.

To write

• The full catalogue, and which surface each name stands in
• Arguments — formatting a date, shifting it, bounding a random number
• The playground