Unfortunately, Shortcuts no longer supports IFTTT so the following functionality is no longer possible.

Although Workflow’s recently added support for API interaction, it’s already been possible to create workflows that interact with many online services already, albeit in a more basic way. Back in June, Workflow added support for IFTTT, a web automation service that makes it simple to connect hundreds of different services to each other.

IFTTT functionality within Workflow is something that I feel is too easily overlooked. I rarely see any workflows that make use of this integration, and even I don’t make much use of it. In fact, the only workflow at Workflow Directory that uses IFTTT is one that I wrote to demonstrate its functionality—a workflow that triggers an IFTTT recipe to call your phone and get you out of an awkward situation.

Workflow’s API support opens up so many possible uses but it can get really complicated very quickly. It’s worth keeping in mind that some of the functionality you’re looking to achieve could be done much more easily with IFTTT. After spending some time exploring what’s possible, I’ve created some examples of IFTTT-powered workflows that demonstrate the usefulness of this action.

Post to Medium

Only a handful of iOS apps support posting to Medium, each of which has slightly different limitations or requirements. Using Workflow, it’s possible to send Markdown-formatted text from almost any app and post it to Medium. Thanks to IFTTT’s extensive Medium support, it’s also possible to specify tags, publication ID, and even a canonical URL if you’re cross-posting a piece you’ve published somewhere already. Interestingly, IFTTT’s support for Medium is actually better than most iOS apps that provide some sort of Medium integration.

This workflow, used as an action extension with any Markdown-formatted text, uses this IFTTT recipe to create a published post on Medium. The workflow prompts for a title, tags, and canonical URL (if required) during the process before it’s published. If you prefer, you can edit the recipe so that the post is unlisted or also added to a publication.

If you edit the recipe to have IFTTT create a draft post instead, tags are not included and need to be added when you edit the draft.

Create GitHub issue

I’ve covered using the GitHub API in Workflow before, but you don’t need to start delving into that if you just want an easy way to create GitHub issues. Using this workflow and IFTTT recipe, you can create an issue within the GitHub repository you specify. There’s also provides an option to include a photo or screenshot when creating the issue. To accommodate this, the workflow uploads it to Dropbox and gets a direct link to use within the issue description.

This workflow makes me wish I had spent more time looking into Workflow’s support of IFTTT. I’d been looking into the NewsBlur API to create a workflow that subscribes to a site I provide, but this is something that I can do just by using IFTTT. This workflow makes use of this recipe and detects the RSS feed of a website, then passes it to NewsBlur to subscribe to.