imessage

A macOS skill for reading and sending iMessages and SMS messages through the Messages app using the imsg command-line tool. SMS means ordinary text messages sent through a phone network.

In plain words
What is it for?
Listing chats, reading conversation history and attachment details, and sending text messages or files to phone numbers or Apple IDs. It requires macOS, a signed-in Messages app, imsg, and the required privacy permissions.
Why use it?
It lets the coding agent inspect chats or send a message without manually operating Messages. It also keeps this workflow separate from messaging services such as Slack, Telegram, Discord, and WhatsApp.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup/imessage
Any agent
npx skills add john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup --skill imessage
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 19 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 662 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 88% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00019 $0.00662
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00331
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00132
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00066

Measured 2d ago against content hash bc68b1648e30, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

imessage scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

88% identical to imessage — 19 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/apple/imessage/SKILL.md · 103 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 103 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

iMessage

Use imsg to read and send iMessage/SMS via macOS Messages.app.

Prerequisites

  • macOS with Messages.app signed in
  • Install: brew install steipete/tap/imsg
  • Grant Full Disk Access for terminal (System Settings → Privacy → Full Disk Access)
  • Grant Automation permission for Messages.app when prompted

When to Use

  • User asks to send an iMessage or text message
  • Reading iMessage conversation history
  • Checking recent Messages.app chats
  • Sending to phone numbers or Apple IDs

When NOT to Use

  • Telegram/Discord/Slack/WhatsApp messages → use the appropriate gateway channel
  • Group chat management (adding/removing members) → not supported
  • Bulk/mass messaging → always confirm with user first

Quick Reference

List Chats

imsg chats --limit 10 --json

View History

# By chat ID
imsg history --chat-id 1 --limit 20 --json

# With attachments info
imsg history --chat-id 1 --limit 20 --attachments --json

Send Messages

# Text only
imsg send --to "+14155551212" --text "Hello!"

# With attachment
imsg send --to "+14155551212" --text "Check this out" --file /path/to/image.jpg

# Force iMessage or SMS
imsg send --to "+14155551212" --text "Hi" --service imessage
imsg send --to "+14155551212" --text "Hi" --service sms

Watch for New Messages

imsg watch --chat-id 1 --attachments

Service Options

  • --service imessage — Force iMessage (requires recipient has iMessage)
  • --service sms — Force SMS (green bubble)
  • --service auto — Let Messages.app decide (default)

Rules

  1. Always confirm recipient and message content before sending
  2. Never send to unknown numbers without explicit user approval
  3. Verify file paths exist before attaching
  4. Don't spam — rate-limit yourself

Example Workflow

User: "Text mom that I'll be late"

# 1. Find mom's chat
imsg chats --limit 20 --json | jq '.[] | select(.displayName | contains("Mom"))'

# 2. Confirm with user: "Found Mom at +1555123456. Send 'I'll be late' via iMessage?"

# 3. Send after confirmation
imsg send --to "+1555123456" --text "I'll be late"

Read the full file on GitHub · 103 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 103 lines · 19 tokens per session scan A bc68b1648e30

Subscribe to this mod's changes

imessage is a skill published in the GitHub repository john-data-chen/hermes-agent-backup (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 19 tokens to every session and 662 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 88% identical to imessage, differing in 19 lines, and is treated as a copy.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories