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Automation

Pesto can be driven from scripts, Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, Shortcuts and the shell. Nothing here sends data anywhere.

Link Does
pesto://open Opens the shelf
pesto://list Shows or hides the floating window
pesto://search?q=text Opens the shelf with that search
pesto://summary?id=<id> Opens the shelf with a search that finds that clip
pesto://paste?id=<id> Pastes a clip
pesto://pin?id=<id> Pins or unpins a clip
pesto://collection?name=Work Switches to a collection (pinboard?name= still works, deprecated)
pesto://clear?range=hour Clears history for hour, today or all; always asks you to confirm, and the range is required

Try one from Terminal: open "pesto://search?q=invoice". Links never call an AI service.

Services menu

Select text in any app and choose Services → Copy to Pesto (the app’s name menu, or a right-click). It copies the text, and Pesto records it like any copy.

AppleScript

tell application "Pesto"
    copy item "hello from a script"
    copy item "a secret" concealed true
    get last item
    search history with query "invoice"
    paste item id "UUID"
    list collections
    clear history range "hour"
end tell

search history and list collections return an AppleScript list, one text per clip or collection (earlier versions returned one text with line breaks). clear history asks for confirmation. concealed true keeps a copy on this Mac, off Universal Clipboard and out of other clipboard managers; Pesto drops a concealed copy too, so it is not added to your history.

The pesto command

A small command-line tool is in the source tree but is not part of the app download yet. Build it with make build-cli.

pesto copy "some text"     # adds text to your clipboard (Pesto captures it)
echo "a secret" | pesto copy   # from stdin, so the text is not visible in the process list
echo "a secret" | pesto copy --concealed   # host-only and concealed; Pesto does not keep it
pesto last                 # prints the latest clip without a secret (nothing while the history lock is on)
pesto last --json          # the same, as JSON
pesto install              # links it into /usr/local/bin, or ~/.local/bin when that folder cannot be written

Shortcuts (Apple’s app)

Pesto adds five actions to the Shortcuts app and Spotlight: Open Pesto, Search Pesto (opens the shelf with your search already typed), Copy from Pesto (searches for text and puts the best match on the clipboard, ready for Command V), Copy Text to Pesto (with a Concealed switch that keeps the copy on this Mac and out of your history) and Hide Clip Contents (blurs the shelf’s clips for a screen share, or shows them again). Find them in the Shortcuts app under Pesto, where any of them can have a keyboard shortcut. While the history is locked, they cannot read or paste your clips. Hide Clip Contents is also a Focus filter (System Settings → Focus), so a Focus can cover your clips while it is on.

Control Center

On macOS 26 and later, Pesto offers an Open Pesto control. Open Control Center, choose Edit Controls, and add it; pressing it opens the shelf. It carries no data: it only opens pesto://open.

This guide matches Pesto as of October 29, 2026. App commit 70204d2.