Embedding a set of actions in another shortcut is quite a common practice these days. Copy-and-paste shortcuts such as MergeCuts by @ROP and ActionCuts by @atow, as well as embedders for updater shortcuts such as Swing Updater [E] by @D3W10 and Embed-a-Update by @pfg, all work by editing a shortcut’s property list (plist) form as plain text and converting that back to a .shortcut file.

This shortcut takes a different approach to embedding actions. Instead of editing the shortcut as text, this shortcut treats the plist format as a dictionary, similar to what the Dictionary action in Shortcuts produces, with the action list as an array. This allows for a more hands-off approach to editing the shortcut and is more reliable.

This shortcut is a template for building your own embedder using this new method. Place the actions you would like to embed after the “Begin embeddable” comment at the bottom of this shortcut, rename the shortcut to whatever you like, and edit the dictionary values at the top as needed.