Invoke programmatically iOS App Extensions

Question

After reading on Apple documentation and checking on stackoverflow, I could not completely understand if it is possible or not to invoke programmatically an specific app extension of type "Action" or "Share".

Mainly, I have built an app extension of type "Action" and I'd like to invoke it programmatically from a second app (so I can send some input attributes and get the output from the extension) without having to open the UIActivityViewController.

Is there any way to do it?

Answer 1

Not exactly. The way to invoke other action in other app is to use custom URL Scheme as mentioned in the Apple docs - https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/Inter-AppCommunication/Inter-AppCommunication.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007072-CH6-SW8

You can than pass some arguments as mentioned in the docs, and in your other app you'll need to parse the URL and act according to those parameters.