2026 MacAdmins Conference

This full-day workshop combines two half-day workshops.

In the morning:
Automate Anything! Create AutoPkg Processor from scratch
This workshop will walk through the steps of creating an AutoPkg processor from start to finish. It will also cover testing the processor and creating example recipes from it.

In the afternoon:
macOS GitOps: Building Secure and Versioned macOS Script Repos
I once accidentally committed a sensitive API key to GitHub, and I only realized it when Security reached out to me. That is the reason I built Shikomi (https://github.com/maparker/shikomi), an open-source tool I built to help Mac Admins build scripts that are secure and versioned. We will use it as a framework to automate things like versioning, security scanning, and GitHub Actions.

Remember: You've already selected your workshop during registration. Adding this workshop to your sched agenda does not count.

Speakers

James Stewart

DevOps Automation, BigFix

Systems Administrator, Software Developer, BigFix Expert

Matt Parker

IT Engineer - Mac Systems, Performance Predictions

Matt Parker is an IT Engineer with 20+ years of experience, specializing in Apple-based systems. His career spans higher education, banking, MSPs, and startups. He is dedicated to providing expert support and solutions for Mac users.

Tuesday July 7, 2026 9:00am - 4:30pm EDT
208 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Workshop Intermediate

Tags Toolbox, Development/Scripting

9:00am EDT

mSCP 2.0: The Quest for More Compliance

Tuesday July 7, 2026 9:00am - 4:30pm EDT

Deans Hall 2

This session will educate admins on the changes and the process of developing and deploying a working security baseline with version 2.0 of the macOS Security Compliance Project. We'll cover what's new from 1.0 and, similar to our session in 2023, have you build your own baselines live. Note: You did not have to be at the 2023 session to know what's going on here.

Remember: You've already selected your workshop during registration. Adding this workshop to your sched agenda does not count.

Speakers

John Mahlman IV

Board Member, Mac Admins Foundation

I have over 15 years of platform engineering experience mainly with macOS but recently with Linux as well. I am a contributor to the macOS Security Compliance project and the macOS CIS Benchmarks and very active within those communities. I have been a planning member of the Greater... Read More →

Matt Woodruff

VP Solutions, MBS

Happily at MBS, formerly Jamf & Apple corporate, co-author JCE, helper on mSCP

Cody Keats

Senior Endpoint Engineer, Coursera

Senior Endpoint Engineer at Coursera with deep experience managing Apple and Linux systems across higher education, government, and high-compliance environments, focused on streamlining workflows, securing endpoints, and advancing open-source tooling for macOS compliance.Lead developer... Read More →

Tuesday July 7, 2026 9:00am - 4:30pm EDT
Deans Hall 2 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Workshop Intermediate

Tags Security, Toolbox, Device Management

9:00am EDT

Python vs zsh for MacAdmins

Wednesday July 8, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT

Deans Hall 2

Comparing python and zsh pros and cons for macadmin utility scripts and packaging

Speakers

Adam Wickert

Senior Infrastructure Engineer

I've been doing IT support since high school when I stumbled into fixing the Macs in our computer labs because the IT staff didn't know what to do with them. I’ve spent the last decade or so working in Mac enterprise management and presenting at conferences like Penn State MacAdmins... Read More →

Oscar Rodriguez

Infrastructure Engineer

Oscar Rodriguez is an Infrastructure Engineer and Jamf Certified Expert specializing in macOS automation, software packaging, and CI/CD pipelines. He has helped lead a large-scale software distribution platform migration, built deployment automation in shell and python saving 1,000... Read More →

Wednesday July 8, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT
Deans Hall 2 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Automation / DevOps & Scripting

9:00am EDT

Permissions, Perils, Pedantry, and Configs: The Basics of PPPC

Wednesday July 8, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT

207

Privacy Preferences Policy Controls are Apple's attempt to balance automation, access, and users security. By updating the Transparency Control and Consent database, they manage access to sensors, services, and sensitive data. This session will cover the basics of their structure, capabilities, limitations, tools for building them, and considerations in deployment.

Speakers

Joshua See

Campus Technology Support Professional, University of Wisconsin - River Falls

I've been doing care and feeding of macOS and iOS for the University of Wisconsin - River Falls since 2003.

Wednesday July 8, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT
207 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Security & Compliance

10:45am EDT

Jamf as Code: Managing Scripts and Extension Attributes with GitLab CI

Wednesday July 8, 2026 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT

207

Managing Jamf scripts and Extension Attributes through the UI doesn’t scale. This session demonstrates how to treat Jamf objects as source-controlled code by syncing scripts and scripted computer Extension Attributes from Git into Jamf Pro using GitLab CI and the Jamf API. We’ll cover repository structure, safe update patterns, lifecycle handling, and production lessons learned.

Speakers

Jonathan Blasingame

IT Support Systems Administrator, Missouri S&T

I am a systems administrator focused on Apple device management and automation. I work with Jamf Pro, APIs, and CI/CD tooling to scale macOS management through source-controlled workflows. My work emphasizes treating infrastructure and management content as code to improve reliability... Read More →

Wednesday July 8, 2026 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT
207 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Automation / DevOps & Scripting

10:45am EDT

Get and set default apps with Utiluti

Wednesday July 8, 2026 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT

208

When just installing a desired app isn't enough, meet Armin Briegel's Utiluti, a flexible command-line tool for assessing and setting the default apps to be used by different file types. We'll review how file types are managed in macOS and how to use this tool in self-service and automated workflows.

Speakers

Ross Matsuda

Apple Systems Engineer, Ntiva

Ross Matsuda is an Apple Systems Engineer with Ntiva, where he manages a fleet of thousands of Apple devices across hundreds of organizations in dozens of industries. He also authors a technology blog focusing on the Apple platform, Sudoade. He has worked in the Apple ecosystem professionally... Read More →

Wednesday July 8, 2026 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT
208 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tools / AI & Practical Solutions Intermediate

Tags Tools / AI & Practical Solutions

3:15pm EDT

Automate Anything! AutoPkg Processors for Everything

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT

Deans Hall 1

This will cover what AutoPkg processors are, their importance in AutoPkg recipes, examples, and custom processors that I have made. It will also cover my best practices for creating new AutoPkg processors in general.

Speakers

James Stewart

DevOps Automation, BigFix

Systems Administrator, Software Developer, BigFix Expert

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT
Deans Hall 1 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Automation / DevOps & Scripting

3:15pm EDT

FileVault 101

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT

Deans Hall 2

This session discusses various topics related to Apple's FileVault 2 encryption on macOS, including information on how FileVault 2 works on Apple Silicon Macs and virtual machines, how to use Apple's fdesetup tool for managing FileVault 2 from the command line and how to use device management solutions to manage this encryption solution.

Speakers

Rich Trouton

Principal Client Engineer, Jamf

Rich Trouton has been doing Macintosh system and server administration for over twenty years and has supported Macs in a number of different environments, including university, government, medical research, advertising and enterprise software development. His current position is at... Read More →

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT
Deans Hall 2 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Security & Compliance

3:15pm EDT

macOS Compliance for the Busy Admin (Overflow in 204)

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT

207

Let’s use the new macOS Security Compliance (mSCP) 2.0 together to create and customize a security baseline. Then, I’ll show how to automate compliance using some management systems.

Speakers

John Mahlman IV

Board Member, Mac Admins Foundation

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT
207 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Security & Compliance

3:15pm EDT

A Different Kind of Device Management: Simple, Unified Apple Management at Scale

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT

205

Your Apple device management tool isn’t the real problem. It sits inside a broader endpoint sprawl — multiple tools, multiple consoles, multiple sources of truth. And even within your Apple tooling, complexity piles upon complexity. In this session, Josh Schofield, NinjaOne's VP of Product Management, walks through a fundamentally different approach: unified policy management that works consistently across your entire Apple fleet, from zero-touch enrollment to ongoing compliance.

Speakers

Josh Schofield

NinjaOne

Josh Schofield is the VP, Product Management at NinjaOne. With 20+ years of experience in technology, his expertise centers around helping IT practitioners automate and improve cyber hygiene. With a foundation in systems engineering and a passion for driving innovation, Schofield... Read More →

Wednesday July 8, 2026 3:15pm - 4:30pm EDT
205 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Sponsor Intermediate

Tags Sponsor

1:15pm EDT

Security Called: How I Turned a Scripting Disaster into a GitOps Pipeline

Thursday July 9, 2026 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT

Deans Hall 1

I once accidentally committed a sensitive API key to GitHub, and I only realized it when Security reached out to me. That "Oh, no!" moment was the reason I built Shikomi, (https://github.com/maparker/shikomi). This session introduces my open-source framework designed to help Mac Admins move away from risky, manual script management. I'll show you how to use Shikomi to automate an efficient process that handles things like versioning, security scanning, and GitHub Actions with secret prevention.

Speakers

Matt Parker

IT Engineer - Mac Systems, Performance Predictions

Thursday July 9, 2026 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Deans Hall 1 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Automation / DevOps & Scripting

1:15pm EDT

The resume of the new Apple admin

Thursday July 9, 2026 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT

205

You know FileVault, configuration profiles, and DDM. But can you name their Windows and Linux counterparts? IT teams are getting leaner and more AI-augmented, and the admins who thrive are the ones who can manage anything — not just Apple. Broaden your platform expertise and you broaden your career. This session translates the Apple concepts you already know into Windows and Linux equivalents, so you can make yourself invaluable at any company across every OS.

Speakers

Dave Siederer

Solutions Consultant, Fleet

Harrison Ravazzolo

Solutions Consultant, Fleet Device Management

Harrison is a Solutions Engineer for Fleet Device Management. He’s passionate about improving IT workflows and approaching problems and solutions through a lens of security. Before entering tech, he was a sourdough bread baker in San Francisco.

Thursday July 9, 2026 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
205 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Sponsor Intermediate

Tags Tools / AI & Practical Solutions / Automation / DevOps & Scripting / Device Management & MDM

2:50pm EDT

Prompt, Don't Script: Designing Agentic IT Automation You Can Trust

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:50pm - 3:50pm EDT

205

Every Mac admin has written a script that works great — until it hits the one weird case you didn't plan for. This session looks at a different approach: plain-language playbooks that an AI agent reasons through at runtime. Instead of locking automation into code, you describe the workflow, test it, see where it breaks, and refine — the same describe-build-debug loop you'd know from an agentic coding tool, brought to IT.

This session was not recorded.

Speakers

Clint Guerrero

Engineer, Console

Clint Guerrero is a Forward Deployed Engineer at Console and a Mac user of 20+ years. He spent years as an engineer at Twitter and Meta, building systems at Twitter that automatically resolved nearly half of inbound support requests, and partner integration and payments tooling at... Read More →

Mateo Davis

Engineering Lead, Console

Mateo is an engineering lead at Console, where he works on identity governance and administration and agentic IT automation. He spent years in access governance at Veza, an identity security startup later acquired by ServiceNow, building systems that helped enterprises manage who... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:50pm - 3:50pm EDT
205 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Sponsor Intermediate

Tags Sponsor

2:50pm EDT

Applying AI to Log Analysis

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:50pm - 3:50pm EDT

Deans Hall 1

Manually inspecting log messages can be a time-consuming task. This emphasizes a need for automated techniques. AI systems can help automate the process of log analysis. By seeing a detailed approach to analyzing logs with AI automation, the goal is attendees will understand how they can enhance their workflows with higher accuracy and save time in the process.

Speakers

Gabriel Jordan

Mac and iOS Administrator

Gabriel has worked at New Life Church for nearly 7 years. As a Mac admin, he has a Master's in Computer Science and received certifications in ITIL 4 Foundation and Apple Certified Support Professional.

Thursday July 9, 2026 2:50pm - 3:50pm EDT
Deans Hall 1 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tools / AI & Practical Solutions Intermediate

Tags Tools / AI & Practical Solutions

4:15pm EDT

S.U.P.E.R.M.A.N. is Back Again

Thursday July 9, 2026 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT

Deans Hall 1

S.U.P.E.R.M.A.N. (or just super) is an open-source script that provides administrators with a comprehensive solution to encourage and enforce macOS minor updates, macOS major upgrades, Jamf Pro Policies, or enforced system restarts. This session will demonstrate the latest features of the super update workflow.

Speakers

Kevin White

Instigator, Macjutsu

Kevin M. White has dedicated his career to mastering Apple technologies so he can share them with the world. Through his company, Macjutsu, Kevin provides professional consulting for Apple's education and enterprise customers. Kevin also develops open source software focusing on automation... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2026 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Deans Hall 1 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tools / AI & Practical Solutions Intermediate

Tags Tools / AI & Practical Solutions

9:00am EDT

Create your own PowerShell Module

Friday July 10, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT

207

Learn how to turn scripts into modules, create your own custom PowerShell commands and increase your scripting power!

Speakers

John Welch

Lead Software Engineer, Honeywell

John's been a part of the Apple world for decades, focusing on automation, network monitoring, and badgering companies about their install experience. He's worked in multiple industries including: Higher Ed (Private & Public), Finance, Advertising/Marketing, Datacenters, City Government... Read More →

Friday July 10, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT
207 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Automation / DevOps & Scripting

9:00am EDT

The Secret-Free Fleet: A Security-First Approach to JIT Admin and MDM Automation

Friday July 10, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT

206

What's the right way to give your fleet privileged access to your directory without handing every Mac your API keys? This session answers that with a production JIT admin escalation system built on a custom middleware API, keeping secrets server-side, automating revocation, capturing every admin session with eslogger, and building a foundation that goes far beyond just local admin.

Speakers

Justin Gianelloni

Identity Access Management Engineer, PrizePicks

With over 20 years of experience in IT, I recently stepped into a dedicated IAM Engineer role to bridge the gap between traditional systems administration and modern security operations. I approach infrastructure through a dual lens—prioritizing both user experience and hardened... Read More →

Matt Parker

IT Engineer - Mac Systems, Performance Predictions

Friday July 10, 2026 9:00am - 10:15am EDT
206 Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, 215 Innovation Blvd, State College, PA 16803, USA

Tags Security & Compliance

10:45am EDT

Dr. Strangeprofile or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Legacy Profile and Declarative

Friday July 10, 2026 10:45am - 12:00pm EDT

208