Here’s a Shortcuts feature that’s easy to miss: The results of actions, i.e. their return values, can be named when you use them, and they will keep that name throughout the workflow.
Any Shortcuts action dictates the name of its return value.
For example, “Ask For Input” has a return value that is named “Provided Input”.
If you use more than one instance of that action in your workflow, then all their return values will be named the same, which can be pretty confusing.
Here, for example, I have three “Ask For Input” actions.
When I add a “Text” block and use these return values one by one, you see that they are all named “Provided Input”, which again, confusing.
But there is a way to rename those result values, and to demonstrate that, I will duplicate the “Text” block, and then rename the variables one by one into “Answer 1”, “Answer 2”, and “Answer 3”.
And as you can see, all the changes I make in the variables of the first “Text” block are reflected in the variables in the second “Text” block.
This is because when you rename a result value, that new name will stick throughout the entire workflow.