Settings and permissions

Settings open inside the Prefab window rather than in a separate panel: ⌘,Ctrl+,, or Settings… from the menu barnotification area icon. There are five pages, and one of them is about permissions macOS will not grant on Prefab's word alone.

General

Keep running in menu bar.Keep running when the window closes. On by default. Closing the window leaves Prefab in the menu barnotification area, where it can still service FinderFile Explorer deploys, deploy links and watched folders. Turn it off and closing the last window quits the app.
Your name. Fills the {{author}} placeholder.
Date format. Which format the {{date}} placeholder produces, chosen from five worked examples rather than typed as a format string.
Finder integration. Open Extension Settings takes you to the Finder Extensions list in System Settings, where the extension can be switched on. See The Finder extension. File Explorer integration. Nothing to switch on: the right-click menu is installed with the app. See The File Explorer menu.
App tour. Restart Tour runs the guided tour again from the beginning.

Appearance

System, Light or Dark. System follows your MacPC's appearance setting.

Experience

Prefab has five experiences: General, Developer, Creative, Writer and Professional. The choice changes the language the app uses and which options it shows, and it restores that experience's defaults, including whether terminal commands start out switched on. Switching experience does not touch templates you have already made.

Below that are the Quick Add Shortcuts: the one-click buttons in the template editor that add a folder or file you use often. Each has a title, an icon and the name of the item it adds, and they drop into the folder selected on the canvas, or at the top level when nothing is selected. You can add your own, edit or remove any of them, and Reset to … Defaults puts back the set that came with your experience. Once you have edited the list it stops following the experience.

Prefab's Experience settings showing the five experience options and the Quick Add shortcut list — The experience seeds the Quick Add list; after that the list is yours.

Permissions

Two things Prefab cannot do on its own, both granted from here.

Terminal access

Terminal commands decides whether a template's actions may run commands such as git init or npm install. It is a single switch, on or off, whichever experience you chose. With it off, the rest of this section is hidden and no command runs.

Turning it on offers to install the shell runner: a small script saved into your Application Scripts folder, which is the only way a sandboxed app can run commands with your normal shell.

Once the switch is on, the Shell runner row reports two things. The first line is the state - Ready, Not installed, Setup required, or Update available when Prefab expects a newer script than the one you have. The second line is the detail: which version is installed and how that compares with what this build of Prefab expects, for example Version 3, up to date or Version 2 installed - version 3 adds timeouts and error reporting.

The buttons beside it follow from that:

Install Shell Runner, Update Shell Runner or Reinstall Shell Runner - the same button under three names. It is always offered, so a script that was edited or deleted by hand can be put back without any ceremony.
Test, once a runner is installed. It runs a real command and reports what came back, including the exit code, or says that the installed script is too old to report one.
Open Scripts Folder, when installing has failed, so you can see where the script was meant to go.
A refresh button, which re-checks the status.

Why installing the runner uses a save panel

macOS only lets an app write into its Application Scripts folder if you choose that folder in a save panel. The panel opens there already, with the filename filled in. Confirm it and the script is installed.

An out-of-date runner is worth updating: it still runs commands, but it cannot tell Prefab whether one succeeded, and it cannot enforce a command's timeout. Both arrived in version 3. See Terminal commands.

Authorized Folders

Prefab is sandboxed, so it cannot create files in a folder until you have pointed at that folder yourself. Choosing a location in the Create Here panel counts as pointing at it, which is why most deploys never ask for anything.

When a deploy names a folder Prefab has not been given, from a deploy link or FinderFile Explorer's right-click menu, it asks once and remembers the answer as a security-scoped bookmark. This page lists every folder you have granted, with its full path. Add Folder grants one ahead of time, and the cross beside a row takes access away again.

Anything inside a granted folder is covered by it, so granting a parent such as your Projects folder is usually enough.

Prefab's Permissions settings showing the terminal commands switch, the shell runner status and version, and the list of authorised folders — Terminal access at the top, with the runner's installed version under its status. Authorised folders underneath.

About

The version Prefab is actually running, read from the build rather than typed in, along with contact and website links. Worth checking when you are working out whether the right-click menu is running the same version as the app, since Finder loads the extension from the registered copy rather than the one you may have just built.