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Automation with Shortcuts & Siri

LogRaker plugs into Apple's automation: its actions appear in the Shortcuts app, can be run by voice with Siri, and your streams, monitors, servers, layouts, and groups are searchable in Spotlight. There's nothing to turn on - everything appears automatically once LogRaker has launched once.

Many actions return a value, so a Shortcut can act on it: read a monitor's error count and branch on it, find the streams that have dropped and restart them, grab a stream's last lines and email them. When you run a value-returning action with Siri, Siri speaks the result aloud.

Ask Siri

These phrases work out of the box (Siri may ask which stream or monitor you mean), and the same phrases surface in Spotlight:

• “How many matches in LogRaker” - a monitor's count
• “How many total matches in LogRaker” - across every monitor
• “Start a stream in LogRaker” / “Stop a stream in LogRaker”
• “Check a stream in LogRaker” - its status
• “Start all streams in LogRaker” / “Stop all streams in LogRaker” / “Restart all streams in LogRaker”
• “Silence LogRaker alarms”
• “Is anything alarming in LogRaker”

All actions

Every action below is in the Shortcuts app under LogRaker, whether or not it has a Siri phrase. Each one that needs a stream, monitor, server, layout, or group takes it as a parameter you pick from a list.

Monitors

• Get Monitor Match Count - the number of matches a monitor currently has: the same count on its badge. Returns a number to branch on.
• Get Total Match Count - the combined count across all monitors (the Dock-badge total).
• Get Monitor Matches - the most recent matches (the last 50 by default), each carrying its line, time, and matched pattern (read them with Get Details of).
• Silence Alarms - stop any active monitor alarm (looping sound and the screen flash).
• Silence Monitor Alarm - silence the alarm for one specific monitor, if it's the one sounding or flashing.
• Is Monitor Alarming - whether a monitor is alarming right now. Returns true/false to branch on.
• Is Anything Alarming - whether any monitor is alarming. Returns true/false.
• Reset Monitor Count - mark a monitor's current matches as seen: its badge drops to zero and any alarm clears (the same acknowledgement as Reset Count in the app).
• Reset All Counts - the same for every monitor at once.
• Open Monitor - bring LogRaker to the front and select that monitor.

Streams

• Start Stream, Stop Stream, Restart Stream - control a single stream's tail.
• Start All Streams / Stop All Streams - every stream at once.
• Restart All Streams - restart every stream that's currently running (leaves stopped streams off).
• Get Stream Output - the most recent lines of a stream's live output (the last 50 by default).
• Get Stream Status - one of Streaming, Connecting, Reconnecting, Stopped, or Error.
• Find Streams by Status - every stream currently in a status you choose, returned as a list you can loop over.
• Clear Stream - empty a stream's output buffer.
• Open Stream - bring LogRaker to the front and select that stream.

Servers

• Get Streams on Server - every stream that uses a given server, as a list.
• Start Streams on Server / Stop Streams on Server - start or stop all of a server's streams at once.
• Open Server - bring LogRaker to the front and select that server.

Layouts

• Open Layout - bring LogRaker to the front and select that multi-pane layout.

Groups

The sidebar's folders work here too - Source Groups, Stream Groups, Layout Groups, and Monitor Groups.

• Open Source Group, Open Stream Group, Open Layout Group, Open Monitor Group - bring LogRaker to the front and select that group.
• Start Streams in Source Group / Stop Streams in Source Group - start or stop every stream across the group's sources at once.
• Start Streams in Stream Group / Stop Streams in Stream Group - every stream in the folder, including its nested groups.
• Start Streams in Layout Group / Stop Streams in Layout Group - every stream the group's layouts drive.
• Get Streams in Source Group / Get Streams in Stream Group / Get Streams in Layout Group - the group's streams as a list, to loop over.
• Get Monitors in Monitor Group - a monitor group's monitors as a list (the monitor counterpart, since monitor groups hold no streams).

Whole lists (for looping)

• Get All Streams / Get All Monitors - the full list, so a Shortcut can repeat with each and act on every one.

Reading details

Use Shortcuts' Get Details of action on a stream, monitor, server, layout, group, or monitor match to read its fields directly - no separate action needed:

• Stream - Name, File, Source, Status, Starts Automatically.
• Monitor - Name, Patterns, Match Count, Is Alarming, Last Match, Color (Green, Amber, or Red - the live activity color for threshold-tinted monitors, the chosen color otherwise), and Matches in Last Hour. "If Color is Red" is the building block for a go-red alert. A monitor keeps its most recent 1,000 matches, so Match Count and Matches in Last Hour are capped at 1,000 - compare against a lower number in a Shortcut.
• Server - Name, Type, Location.
• Layout - Name, Kind (including Monitor Board), Streams, Monitors.
• Source Group - Name, Sources. Stream Group - Name, Streams. Layout Group - Name, Layouts. Monitor Group - Name, Monitors.
• Monitor Match - Line, Time, Pattern (from Get Monitor Matches).

Source (on a stream) and Location (on a server) are aware of the source type: an SSH host (as user@host), This Mac for a local source, the region for AWS CloudWatch, or the project for GCP / Firebase.

Spotlight

Your streams, monitors, servers, layouts, and groups are indexed into Spotlight: type a name and it appears as a result; press Return and LogRaker opens with it selected. (Spotlight indexes the names, not the log contents.)

Suggestions

The more you open a particular stream, monitor, server, layout, or group, the more macOS learns the habit and starts suggesting it - in Spotlight, in the Shortcuts app, and in Siri Suggestions. Nothing to set up; it builds up as you work.

Good to know

• LogRaker must be running for the live actions; running one launches LogRaker if it isn't already open. The counts, output, and status reflect the running session.
• Match counts are the live session. They accumulate while LogRaker runs and a monitor's streams are tailing, and reset when LogRaker relaunches - so right after a cold launch a count reads 0 until matches come in.
• Pause has no Shortcut. Pausing only freezes a pane's on-screen output, not the tail, so there's nothing meaningful to automate.