Photoshop actions

Just to be clear, do you mean scripts that are written in plain text in ExtendScript/JavaScript? Or do you mean an action that is recorded via the actions panel? I only ask because the title of your topic post is "Photoshop actions" and not "Photoshop scripts" so the body content does not match the topic title. Many people use the terms interchangeably, however, they are separate things (an action can run a script and a script can play an action).

This could be performed in many different ways, semi-automated using existing features and recording an action or fully automated via scripting.

Could you list in more detail, perhaps step by step what you are looking for?

For example, the following action does exactly what you ask, it is semi-automated and requires manual input from the user to select 3 input files and it will then create 3 artboards (optionally requiring user input for names/sizes), then automatically move the layers into each artboard and then ask you to save a PSD and then it closes down the file. It does not quit as you stated, however, that is possible too. Now if you had a variable quantity of input images, then you would need a script, not an action as this method uses a mixture of fixed, relative and absolute operations (otherwise you would need to make a separate action for each quantity of input images).

P.S. You said you know how to script, but not how to open a file via a dialog... One way to do so is like this:

var inputFile = File.openDialog('Select a file...', '~/Desktop');
app.open(inputFile);

A script can have a dialog or button that lets you select a specific file. Or you can use something like a text file listing (maybe exported from a spreadsheet) of files to process. How would the script user know which photos are required, if this was done manually?