Redcast Snippets
Reusable Markdown templates with placeholders, arguments and keyword expansion.
A snippet is text you reuse, saved as a plain Markdown file that you can also edit by hand.
Paste a snippet from the launcher or the snippet browser, or type its keyword in any app and it expands in place.
Turn snippets on in Settings → Snippets. They're off by default.
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| Enable snippets | Off |
| Show in launcher | On |
Turning on the switch also counts as consent to keyword matching. There's no separate prompt. Redcast first explains what keyword matching does, then asks for Accessibility.
Turning snippets off stops the keyword listener, the file watcher and the launcher rows. Your files stay where they are.
Turning off Show in launcher hides snippets and the two snippet commands from search. Keyword expansion and the browser's shortcut keep working.
snippetsEnabled is never included in backups, so importing a backup can't
turn on keystroke listening.
Commands
| Command | Does |
|---|---|
| Search Snippets | Opens the snippet browser |
| Create Snippet | Opens the editor with a new snippet |
You can give both a global shortcut and an alias in Settings → Snippets.
The snippet browser
Search Snippets lists every enabled snippet with a preview next to it. Type to filter by name or keyword.
The preview shows the template as written, with its placeholders, along with the name, keyword, shortcut, file name and character count. The preview never fills in placeholders, so browsing never reads your clipboard or asks for an argument.
| Action (⌘K) | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Paste Snippet | return |
| Edit Snippet | ⌘E |
| Create Snippet | ⌘N |
| Show in Finder | ⌘return |
Press esc, or delete in an empty search, to go back.
Shortcuts
Any snippet can have its own global shortcut. Record it on the snippet's row in Settings → Snippets. Pressing it pastes the snippet wherever you're typing, the same way the launcher does: placeholders, arguments, the cursor position and the confirmation all work the same.
A snippet's shortcut does nothing while snippets are off or while that snippet is disabled.
The shortcut is tied to the file. If you rename or move the file outside Redcast, or choose a different snippets folder, the shortcut is cleared. Snippet shortcuts aren't included in backups.
The file format
Each snippet is one Markdown file in Redcast's Application Support folder. Frontmatter is optional.
---
name: "Meeting Notes"
keyword: "!notes"
enabled: true
show_confirmation: false
---
## {date format="EEEE, d MMMM"}
Attendees: {argument name="Attendees"}
{cursor}name defaults to the file name, and keyword is optional. enabled defaults to true, and
show_confirmation defaults to false.
Text values need double quotes. Keys aren't case-sensitive. Unknown keys, unquoted text,
repeated keys, and booleans other than lowercase true or false are rejected with a message that
names the problem.
Everything after the closing --- is the body, and it's kept exactly as written, including blank
lines, line endings, Unicode characters and any later --- lines.
Each channel has its own folder, so the stable and beta versions never share snippet files.
Placeholders
| Token | Gives |
|---|---|
{clipboard} | The clipboard contents, as plain text |
{clipboard offset=1} | An earlier clip; 1 is the one before the current one |
{selection} | The selected text in the app you were using |
{date} {time} {datetime} | Today's date, the time, or both, in your locale |
{day} | The name of the weekday |
{uuid} | A new UUID for each token |
{date format="yyyy-MM-dd"} | Any date format |
{date locale="fr-FR"} | Another locale; can't be combined with format |
{time offset="+3h +30m"} | Shifted by m minutes, h hours, d days, M months, y years |
{argument} | Asks you for a value, named "Argument" |
{argument name="Recipient"} | Asks for a named value |
{argument default="Hi"} | Optional; uses the default without asking |
{argument options="a, b, c"} | Asks you to pick from a list |
{snippet:Name} | Another snippet, inserted inline |
{cursor} | Where the cursor goes afterward |
These match Raycast's dynamic placeholders, so
snippets you import keep working. Raycast's {selectedText} and {query} also work, as
{selection} and {argument}. {snippet name="Name"} works the same as {snippet:Name}.
A value only needs quotes if it contains |. Without quotes, a value continues up to the next
key=, so {date format=MMMM d, yyyy} keeps its spaces.
The editor's Insert… menu lists every token. You type parameters and modifiers yourself.
Modifiers
Chain modifiers from left to right: {clipboard | trim | uppercase}
Available modifiers: uppercase · lowercase · trim · percent-encode · json-stringify ·
raw
json-stringify escapes text for use inside a JSON string, without adding the quotes. raw only
matters in quicklinks. {cursor} and snippet references don't
take modifiers.
When a token is wrong
If Redcast can't read a token, it leaves it in the text exactly as you wrote it instead of
silently removing it. So if you see {arguemnt} in your pasted text, you know where the typo is.
{browser-tab} and {calculator} aren't supported.
Limits
Each argument is asked for once, in the order it first appears, including arguments inside referenced snippets. Values are inserted as they are: text in a value that looks like a token isn't expanded again.
Snippet references aren't case-sensitive and can be nested up to five levels deep. Redcast detects loops. A missing, looping or too-deeply nested reference stays in the text as a token.
All {cursor} tokens are removed, and the first one sets where the cursor goes.
Keyword expansion
Give a snippet a keyword, and typing that keyword in any app replaces it with the snippet.
- Keywords aren't case-sensitive, and the longest match wins, so a more specific keyword takes priority.
- The typing buffer holds at most 256 characters. It resets when you switch apps, when Secure Event Input turns on, when you press arrow keys or shortcuts with modifiers, and after 15 seconds without typing.
- If you keep typing before an expansion happens, the expansion is canceled so it can't land in the middle of a word.
- Right before deleting the keyword and inserting the text, Redcast checks everything again. If anything changed, it leaves what you typed alone.
Settings shows the current status: Off, Needs Accessibility or Active.
Keywords never expand in Redcast's own search field or in Settings. A keyword typed in Notes expands directly in the note.
How the text gets inserted
Redcast first tries a single replacement through Accessibility, then checks that it worked.
Some apps, like Chrome, VS Code, Slack and other Electron apps, don't support that properly, so Redcast types the text instead. Short, single-line expansions of up to 100 characters are typed as keystrokes.
Longer or multi-line text is pasted using the clipboard for a moment. Redcast saves your clipboard, pastes only the snippet text, then restores your clipboard exactly. If you copied something new in the meantime, Redcast keeps your new copy. None of this appears in your clipboard history.
In the launcher
Enabled snippets appear in launcher search while Show in launcher is on. Both the name and the keyword are searchable, and they rank the same way app names do.
return pastes the snippet.
The editor
Changes aren't saved until you click Save. New doesn't create a file until you save for the first time.
If the file changed on disk while you were editing, Redcast refuses to save and reports a conflict so it doesn't overwrite the other changes. Open the snippet again to see the current version.
Show confirmation is set per snippet and is off by default. When it's on, a short message shows the snippet's name after it's inserted. Failed or canceled expansions never show it.
Tags
Add tags in the editor to group entries by project or purpose. Search matches tags as well as names; a query starting with # searches tags. In the dedicated search screen, ⌘P opens the tag filter, and All Tags clears it. Tags travel in the corresponding exports and full backup.