Run zsh alias via automator?

Question

I am using zsh with oh-my-zsh in iTerm on macOS. There are some aliases defined in my .zshrc I use often, like this:

deploy(){
 cd ~/Path/To/My/Project;
 build ...;
 rsync ...;
}

To execute this, I have to switch over to iTerm and run the alias. Now I'd like to be able to do that from anywhere via a hotkey.

I've read that automator is the tool of choice.

I created an action "run shell script" and chose `/bin/zsh/' from the list of available shells.

But running my alias returns zsh:1: command not found.

Am I on the wrong shell? But echo $0 in iTerm gives me -zsh.

How can I run my alias without being in the iTerm window? Any approach will do, Automator is just how I'm trying to accomplish it.

Answer 1

The solution is to source the file dependencies you need inside the automator script.

Example if you added all of your scripts to ~/.zshrc

source ~/.zshrc
deploy

You can debug things easier by doing which deploy to check to see if that script is accessible.

Answer 2

Automator runs in its own environment and does not read your shell rc files. The PATH is limited to /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin. None of the environment is exported for further use. You could define the function in Run Shell Script and run it like this:

 deploy () {
 cd ~/Path/To/My/Project;
 build ...;
 rsync ...;
 }

 deploy

Though this is somewhat limited.

Answer 3

I found a workaround without automator;

On https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/136931/60854 I read about hotkeys in iTerm. I made a hotkey in Keys > Hotkey to call iTerm to the foreground and another one in Profile > Keys > Key Mappings to enter a string deploy\n. Now I press cmd-i cmd-o and here we go.