How do I run an Automator action, shell script or AppleScript on startup in OS X?

Question

I know you can run applications on startup on a Mac, but can you run an Automator action, a Service, a shell script, or an AppleScript on startup instead?

I also know you can save all of these as an application, but I don't want it opening in the dock.

Answer 1

First of all, login is distinct from startup. This answer assumes you mean login, as you apparently refer to the ability to start programs as configured in System Preferences » Users & Groups.

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Run Automator scripts using the command line utility automator and AppleScripts using osascript. Their man pages explain the usage in detail.

You can set a login hook, but it is rather outdated and deprecated in favor of launchd.

You can create launchd jobs by placing XML configuration files in your ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory. This site contains quite a few rather minimal examples, and you can view /System/Library/LaunchAgents for examples of system-provided launchd jobs. You need the RunAtLoad directive for launchd.

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You still can save your AppleScripts and Automator scripts as applications, and run them as such. To hide them from the Dock, edit their Contents/Info.plist file and add an LSUIElement directive as described e.g. here. This will hide its Dock icon and menu.

Answer 2

You could save a property list like this as ~/Library/LaunchAgents/some.label.plist.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC -//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN
http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>some.label</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>automator</string>
        <string>/path/to/example.workflow</string>
        <!-- <string>osascript</string>
        <string>/path/to/example.scpt</string> -->
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

It has to be loaded first by running launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/some.label.plist or logging out and back in once.