Hi
@baretg
If your existing solutions don't work for you and you want to make it work with Actions, there is always a debug process with Actions/Scripts/Software solution. One of the tools for debugging is putting the execution in the mode to execute each action step one at a time under your control. After each step you can examine what looks right and what does not. That will isolate the step that is not working as you expected and often revealing the mistake. If you don't understand why it does not work as expected, that could be a specific question on the forums. The problem can be caused by many things so it is hard to just guess without seeing your PSD file and the Action itself. Actions can be saved as ATN files and shared to help debugging.
Most software is quite simple and lacks the sophistication of AI and guess what you need done. Most software will execute a step by step specific steps without understanding the overall picture. Think about the details you would need to give to a kindergarten or preshcooler to execute the task successfully without asking you any questions along the way and you would have the outline for a software program. If you want the software to work multiple times on different jobs, then those jobs need to be structured identical enough where the steps would work on them too (e.g. number of Layers, layer names, the same starting layer active, and all layers starting with a consistent visibility, etc. Not hard yet can be tedious just as debugging can be. So if you want someone else to do it, you would either have to provide such details or provide the higher level directions, the PSD file, and interface with the programmer so they could ask you questions to extract the details for them to do their work. At least that has been my experience. Its also why programming is typically well paying jobs because its not easy to get it right (as you are finding out).
Just my quick suggestions
John Wheeler
ADDED EDIT - here is a link to an Adobe Help File on managing actions including playback for use with debugging:
Managing Actions