About

Imported from joelhooks/joelclaw (skills/imsg/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add joelhooks/joelclaw --skill imsg. Copyright stays with the author.

iMessage

Name: imsg
Author: joelhooks

Read and send iMessages and SMS from the terminal via the imsg CLI.

Setup (Panda)

Messages.app signed in as: the agent Apple ID (see USER.md)
Joel's iMessage address: see USER.md → imessage
Full Disk Access must be granted to the terminal for read operations (chats, history, watch)
Automation permission for Messages.app required for send
imsg send returns "sent" optimistically — this means AppleScript fired, not delivery confirmed

Commands

List chats

imsg chats --limit 10 --json

Read history

imsg history --chat-id <id> --limit 20 --attachments --json

Watch for new messages

imsg watch --chat-id <id> --attachments

Send

# By email (iMessage)
imsg send --to "user@example.com" --text "hello"

# By phone number (iMessage or SMS)
imsg send --to "+18005551234" --text "hello"

# With file attachment
imsg send --to "user@example.com" --text "see attached" --file /path/to/file.jpg

Delivery Notes

"sent" from CLI = AppleScript successfully handed off to Messages.app
"Not delivered" in Messages.app = actual delivery failure (auth issue, recipient offline, etc.)
Full Disk Access missing = read commands fail with permissionDenied; send still works via AppleScript
Messages appear as coming from the agent Apple ID, not from Joel

Sending to Joel

Joel's iMessage address is in USER.md (imessage field). Use it to notify him directly:

imsg send --to "<joel-imessage>" --text "your message"

Safety

Read-only by default — use chats and history before sending
Always confirm recipient and message text before imsg send
--json flag preferred for all read operations (deterministic parsing)

Install

brew install steipete/tap/imsg

Credit

CLI by steipete. Adopted per ADR-0067.

Use it

Copy one of these into your project. Installing also returns the manifest and these snippets.

yaml

targets:
  - https://api.opensmartroute.ai/api/v1/registry/joelhooks-joelclaw-imsg/manifest   # or paste the manifest below

Manifest

An Open Capability Manifest: the router reads it to know what this does, what it costs and when to pick it.

joelhooks-joelclaw-imsg.ocm.jsonjson

{
  "ocm": "1",
  "id": "joelhooks-joelclaw-imsg",
  "kind": "skill",
  "name": "imsg",
  "description": "iMessage/SMS CLI for listing chats, reading message history, watching for new messages, and sending messages. Triggers on: check messages, read imessage, send text, imsg, message history, sms, who texted me.",
  "publisher": "joelhooks",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "capabilities": {
    "domains": [
      "general"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "skill-md",
      "joelclaw",
      "messaging",
      "imessage",
      "sms",
      "communication",
      "skills-sh"
    ],
    "languages": [
      "en"
    ]
  },
  "quality_prior": 0.6,
  "examples": [
    "iMessage/SMS CLI for listing chats, reading message history, watching for new messages, and sending messages. Triggers on: check messages, read imessage, send text, imsg, message history, sms, who texted me."
  ],
  "primary": false,
  "metadata": {
    "source": {
      "provider": "skills.sh",
      "repository": "https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw",
      "path": "skills/imsg/SKILL.md",
      "ref": "HEAD",
      "url": "https://github.com/joelhooks/joelclaw/blob/HEAD/skills/imsg/SKILL.md",
      "key": "joelhooks/joelclaw/skills/imsg/SKILL.md"
    }
  },
  "instructions": "# iMessage\n\nRead and send iMessages and SMS from the terminal via the `imsg` CLI.\n\n## Setup (Panda)\n\n- **Messages.app signed in as**: the agent Apple ID (see USER.md)\n- **Joel's iMessage address**: see USER.md → `imessage`\n- Full Disk Access must be granted to the terminal for **read** operations (`chats`, `history`, `watch`)\n- Automation permission for Messages.app required for **send**\n- `imsg send` returns `\"sent\"` optimistically — this means AppleScript fired, not delivery confirmed\n\n## Commands\n\n### List chats\n\n```bash\nimsg chats --limit 10 --json\n```\n\n### Read history\n\n```bash\nimsg histo",
  "cost": {
    "context_tokens": 479
  }
}

Fetch it by URL: GET /api/v1/registry/joelhooks-joelclaw-imsg/manifest?version=1.0.0

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