Calendar & Events

Calendar is a native OcaltQL domain. Events, recurrence, reminders, availability, and import/export are all first-class verbs. There is no prefix namespace and no string-parsing of dates or intervals.

NEW EVENT

Creates a calendar event. All modifiers are optional except the title. SET captures the event object.

Basic event

NEW EVENT "Team Standup"
ON "2026-07-01" FROM "09:00" TO "09:30"
TIMEZONE "Africa/Johannesburg"
WITH DESCRIPTION "Daily team sync"
WITH ATTENDEES "alice@co.com" AND "bob@co.com"
AT LOCATION "Conference Room A"
REMIND 15 MINUTES BEFORE
SET ?ev
AFTER EMIT ?ev("id")

All day event

NEW EVENT "Company Holiday"
ON "2026-08-09" ALL DAY
SET ?ev

Recurring Events

EVERY sets the recurrence rule. STARTING and UNTIL bound the series. Without UNTIL, the event recurs indefinitely.

Keyword	Recurrence
`EVERY DAY`	Daily
`EVERY WEEKDAY`	Monday through Friday
`EVERY WEEK`	Weekly on the same day
`EVERY MONDAY` — `EVERY SUNDAY`	Weekly on a named day
`EVERY MONTH`	Monthly on the same date
`EVERY YEAR`	Annually on the same date

Recurring event

NEW EVENT "Weekly Review"
EVERY MONDAY FROM "10:00" TO "11:00"
STARTING "2026-07-07"
UNTIL "2026-12-31"
SET ?ev

Reminders & Triggers

REMIND N MINUTES BEFORE sets a reminder on the event. THEN chains an action to fire when the reminder triggers — any OcaltQL verb is valid after THEN.

Reminder with mail trigger

NEW EVENT "Weekly Report"
EVERY MONDAY FROM "09:00" TO "09:30"
STARTING "2026-07-07"
REMIND 10 MINUTES BEFORE
THEN MAIL TEXT BODY "Weekly report starting in 10 minutes." TO "admin@myco.com" SUBJECT "Report Reminder"
SET ?ev
AFTER EMIT ?ev("id")

Supported interval units: MINUTES, HOURS, DAYS.

Querying Events

Native temporal keywords replace string arguments. WHERE filters use structured clauses, not string expressions.

Temporal queries

GET EVENTS TODAY SET ?today
AFTER GET EVENTS THIS WEEK SET ?thisweek
AFTER GET EVENTS THIS MONTH SET ?thismonth
AFTER GET EVENTS FROM "2026-07-01" TO "2026-07-31" SET ?range
AFTER GET NEXT EVENT SET ?next
AFTER EMIT ?next

Filtered queries

GET EVENTS THIS WEEK WHERE TITLE CONTAINS "Standup" SET ?byTitle
AFTER GET EVENTS FROM "2026-07-01" TO "2026-07-31"
WHERE LOCATION IS "Conference Room A"
SET ?byLocation
AFTER EMIT ?byTitle

WHERE operator	Description
`TITLE IS "..."`	Exact title match
`TITLE CONTAINS "..."`	Title substring match
`LOCATION IS "..."`	Exact location match
`LOCATION CONTAINS "..."`	Location substring match
`ATTENDEE IS "..."`	Events including a specific attendee
`CALENDAR IS "..."`	Events belonging to a named calendar

Updating Events

UPDATE ?ev modifies an existing event object. Multiple modifiers can be combined in a single update.

Update title

UPDATE ?ev
SET TITLE TO "New Title"

Move time

UPDATE ?ev
MOVE TO "2026-07-02" FROM "10:00" TO "11:00"

Combined update

UPDATE ?ev
SET TITLE TO "New Title"
MOVE TO "2026-07-02" FROM "10:00" TO "11:00"
ADD ATTENDEE "carol@co.com"
REMOVE ATTENDEE "bob@co.com"

Removing Events

REMOVE EVENT deletes a single occurrence. AND ALL OCCURRENCES removes the entire recurring series.

Remove

REMOVE EVENT ?ev SET ?n
AFTER EMIT "removed: " & ?n
(* AND ALL OCCURRENCES removes the whole recurring series instead of one date *)
AFTER REMOVE EVENT ?series AND ALL OCCURRENCES SET ?total

Calendars

A calendar is a named container for events. Events created without specifying a calendar go into the default calendar.

Create, list, drop

NEW CALENDAR "Work"
WITH DESCRIPTION "Work schedule"
COLOR "#0057FF"
SET ?cal

AFTER LIST CALENDARS SET ?all
AFTER EMIT ?all

AFTER DROP CALENDAR ?cal SET ?n

Availability & Booking

CHECK AVAILABILITY returns an array of free slots of the requested duration within the given range. BOOK SLOT converts a slot into a confirmed event.

Check and book

CHECK AVAILABILITY FROM "2026-07-01" TO "2026-07-07" FOR 30 MINUTES SET ?slots
AFTER EMIT ?slots

AFTER BOOK SLOT ?slots(0)
WITH NAME "Carol"
AND EMAIL "carol@example.com"
SET ?booking
AFTER EMIT ?booking("id")

Export & Import

Export to iCal file

EXPORT CALENDAR ?cal TO FILE "/root/backup.ics" SET ?ical
AFTER EMIT "exported"

Import from iCal file

IMPORT CALENDAR FROM FILE "/root/events.ics" INTO ?cal SET ?n
AFTER EMIT "Imported: " & ?n & " events"

Event Object Fields

All fields accessed via ?ev("field").

Field	Type	Description
`id`	string	Unique event ID
`calendar_id`	string	Parent calendar ID
`title`	string	Event title
`description`	string	Event description
`location`	string	Event location
`starts`	date	Start timestamp
`ends`	date	End timestamp
`timezone`	string	IANA timezone string
`all_day`	bool	True if all-day event
`attendees`	array	List of attendee email addresses
`rrule`	string	RFC 5545 recurrence rule
`series_id`	string	Shared ID across all occurrences of a recurring event
`created_at`	date	Creation timestamp

Quick Reference

Verb	Returns
`NEW EVENT "title"`	Event object
`GET EVENT ?id`	Event object
`GET EVENTS TODAY`	Array of events
`GET EVENTS THIS WEEK`	Array of events
`GET EVENTS THIS MONTH`	Array of events
`GET EVENTS FROM "date" TO "date"`	Array of events
`GET EVENTS ... WHERE ...`	Array of events
`GET NEXT EVENT`	Next event or null
`UPDATE ?ev`	True
`REMOVE EVENT ?ev`	Count deleted
`REMOVE EVENT ?ev AND ALL OCCURRENCES`	Count deleted
`NEW CALENDAR "name"`	Calendar object
`LIST CALENDARS`	Array of calendars
`DROP CALENDAR ?cal`	Count deleted
`CHECK AVAILABILITY FROM ... TO ... FOR ...`	Array of free slots
`BOOK SLOT ?slot WITH NAME ... AND EMAIL ...`	Event object
`EXPORT CALENDAR ?cal TO FILE "..."`	iCal string
`IMPORT CALENDAR FROM FILE "..." INTO ?cal`	Count imported