app_open_clean — open + dismiss welcome modal

A common failure pattern when an LLM agent first drives a Mac app: launch the app → start typing or clicking → realize too late that a "What's New" or "Welcome" sheet was sitting on top of the real UI the whole time. The keystrokes go nowhere or hit the wrong target. The app looks unresponsive but is actually working fine; the modal is invisible to the AX-walk because it's a separate sheet.

This skill handles both phases in a single tool call:

1. open -a <app> — launches via Launch Services
2. osascript walks the frontmost process's windows + sheets, clicks the highest-priority dismiss button it finds, repeats once for stacked welcome flows.

If the app has no modal (already dismissed, or never had one), the script exits clean and reports "no modal found" — completely safe to call on already-open apps.

When to use

• You're driving a built-in macOS app you haven't touched in this session: Reminders, Mail, Calendar, Photos, Maps, Music, etc.
• You just upgraded macOS — every app's "What's New" fires once.
• A third-party app you've never opened on this machine (Bear, Slack, Notion, etc.).

When NOT to use

• App is already running and you've already used it — shell open -a is enough, no modal will appear.
• The "modal" you want to keep — e.g. you opened Mail to use the Add Account flow on purpose. (Use shell open -a Mail directly then.)

Examples

app_open_clean app=Reminders
  → opened: Reminders
    dismissed: Continue → Got It

app_open_clean app=Calculator
  → opened: Calculator
    dismissed: (no modal found)

Why a SKILL.md and not native

Pure shell + osascript. No Go state, no AX walking via kinax that this skill doesn't already get from the standard ui tool. Sticks to the "thin kernel + fat skill" thesis — apps come and go, modal shapes evolve, this is exactly what forge should be writing.

Override / extend

If your installed app has a different dismiss button label not in the priority list (e.g. "Begin", "OK, got it", "下一步"), edit this SKILL.md and add it to dismissBtns. Or forge a sibling skill named after the specific app.