Running Custom Scripts from a StreamDeck

Running commands on an Elgato Streamdeck

Originally posted here: Reddit post

I have expanded on these findings and made working snippets I would use often with my StreamDeck which can be found on my GitHub here.

---

I’ve been spending some time working with the Stream Deck and trying to use it to launch various scripts/interface with AWS.

I figured I’d share some of my discoveries.

Setup:

• macOS: 10.15.7
• Stream Deck version: 5.2.1
• Hardware: Stream Deck XL

I have been using the ‘Open’ System action to call various scripts. Here are some ‘gotchas’:

• Script must have a valid extension (.sh and .py have worked for me so far)
• Script must be executable (chmod +x myscript.sh)
• All arguments are sent to the command
• Unlike in a traditional shell (bash, zsh, sh) file redirection will NOT work
• Output using foo.py (contents below) to output to stdout, stderr, and to trigger a Traceback

  /Users/jasapple/git/deckScripts/foo.py >> pypypyp.txt 2>&1
  Hello World['/Users/jasapple/git/deckScripts/foo.py', '>>', 'pypypy.txt', '2>&1']
  /Users/jasapple/git/deckScripts/foo.py
  Hello World['/Users/jasapple/git/deckScripts/foo.py']
  

• The $PATH` var is extremely limited. I found it is better to just assume you have none and use the full command path.

  $ which ls
  /bin/ls
  $ which python3
  /usr/local/bin/python3
  

  For debugging, I wanted to capture stdout and stderr. Since the Stream Deck doesn’t have anyway to actually view this, I opted to output everything to a log file. I wrote the below script as a output redirect

#!/bin/bash

exec >> log.txt
exec 2>&1

#env #show the environment variables

/usr/local/bin/python3 myScript.py $@

The next adventure is to update the text on the Stream Deck based on system variables

Contents of ‘foo.py’

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import sys

print("foobar")

with open("streamLog.txt","a") as f:
    f.write("Hello World")

    f.write(str(sys.argv) + "\n")

    print("can you hear me?")

    raise KeyError