Email → Calendar Extraction Engine

Turn emails into structured calendar events with zero missed deadlines.

Quick Start

When you receive an email (forwarded, pasted, or from inbox):

1. Parse — Extract every time-relevant item using the framework below
2. Classify — Score each item by type and confidence
3. Present — Show structured results with numbered selection
4. Create — Use the user's calendar tool to create confirmed events
5. Follow up — Track deadlines and send reminders

1. Extraction Framework

What to Look For

Scan every email for ALL of these categories:

Extraction Template

For each item found, extract:

- title: "Descriptive name (max 80 chars)"
  type: event | deadline | action_item | travel | recurring
  date: "YYYY-MM-DD"
  day_of_week: "Monday"  # Always include for verification
  time_start: "14:00"    # 24h format, default 09:00 if unclear
  time_end: "15:00"      # Default: start + 1h for meetings, all-day for deadlines
  timezone: "America/New_York"  # Extract from email headers or content
  is_all_day: false
  is_multi_day: false     # If true, include end_date
  end_date: null
  recurrence: null        # "weekly" | "biweekly" | "monthly" | "MWF" | custom RRULE
  location: null          # Physical address or video link
  url: null               # Registration link, event page, or action URL
  attendees: []           # Names/emails mentioned
  confidence: high | medium | low
  source_quote: "exact text from email that indicates this event"
  notes: "any context the user should know"
  deadline_action: null   # "RSVP" | "register" | "buy tickets" | "submit"
  deadline_url: null      # Direct link to take action
  reminder_minutes: 30    # Suggested reminder (15 for calls, 60 for travel, 1440 for deadlines)

Confidence Scoring

Smart Defaults

• No time given for meeting → 09:00-10:00 (mark confidence: medium)
• No time given for deadline → 23:59 (end of day)
• No timezone → Use user's default timezone, note assumption
• "Morning" → 09:00, "Afternoon" → 14:00, "Evening" → 18:00, "EOD" → 17:00
• "Next week" → Following Monday (mark confidence: medium)
• Multi-day event → Set is_multi_day: true, include start and end dates

2. Email Classification

Before extracting, classify the email:

Ignore Patterns (Skip These)

• Automated calendar responses (Accepted, Declined, Tentative)
• Unsubscribe confirmations
• Read receipts
• Auto-replies / Out of office
• Spam/promotional (unless user explicitly forwards it)

3. Presentation Format

Always present extracted items in this format:

📧 From: [sender] | Subject: [subject] | Date: [received date]

Found [N] calendar items:

1. 🔴 **Team Standup** — Mon Feb 17, 9:00-9:30 AM EST
   📍 Zoom (link in email) | 👥 Alice, Bob, Charlie
   🔁 Recurring: Every weekday
   ✅ Confidence: High

2. 🔴 **Project Deadline: Q1 Report** — Fri Feb 28, EOD
   ⚠️ ACTION REQUIRED: Submit report
   🔗 [Submission portal](url)
   ⏰ Suggested reminder: 3 days before
   ✅ Confidence: High

3. 🟡 **Team Lunch** — "sometime next week"
   📍 TBD
   ⚠️ Confidence: Medium — date needs confirmation

---
Reply with numbers to create (e.g. "1, 2"), "all", or "none".
Type "edit 3" to modify before creating.

Presentation Rules

1. Always show day of week — humans verify dates by day name
2. Group by date when >5 items
3. Flag conflicts — if new event overlaps existing calendar
4. Highlight deadlines with ⚠️ and days remaining
5. Show source quote for medium/low confidence items
6. Never auto-create without user confirmation

4. Calendar Creation

After user confirms, create events using their calendar tool:

Google Calendar (via gog or API)

gog calendar create \
  --title "Event Title" \
  --start "2026-02-17T09:00:00-05:00" \
  --end "2026-02-17T10:00:00-05:00" \
  --description "Extracted from email: [subject]" \
  --location "Zoom link or address"

Apple Calendar (via osascript)

osascript -e 'tell application "Calendar"
  tell calendar "Work"
    make new event with properties {summary:"Event Title", start date:date "Monday, February 17, 2026 at 9:00:00 AM", end date:date "Monday, February 17, 2026 at 10:00:00 AM", description:"Extracted from email", location:"Zoom"}
  end tell
end tell'

Notion / Other

• Format as structured data and use the appropriate API
• Or output as .ics file the user can import anywhere

ICS Export (Universal)

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20260217T090000
DTEND:20260217T100000
SUMMARY:Event Title
DESCRIPTION:Extracted from email
LOCATION:Zoom link
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR

5. Duplicate Detection

Before creating any event, check for duplicates:

1. Search calendar for events on the same date with similar title (fuzzy match)
2. Check tracking file — maintain a log of created events:

// memory/email-calendar-log.json
{
  "created_events": [
    {
      "email_id": "msg-123",
      "email_subject": "Team Offsite",
      "event_title": "Team Offsite",
      "event_date": "2026-02-17",
      "calendar_event_id": "cal-456",
      "created_at": "2026-02-13T10:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

3. If duplicate found: Show user and ask — "This looks similar to [existing event]. Skip, update, or create anyway?"

6. Deadline & Reminder Engine

Deadline Patterns to Detect

Reminder Strategy

• >30 days away: Remind 1 week before
• 7-30 days away: Remind 3 days before
• <7 days away: Remind 1 day before
• Deadlines with URLs: Include the action URL in the reminder
• Create reminder as separate calendar event: "⚠️ DEADLINE: [action] for [event]"

7. Travel Email Handling

Travel confirmations get special treatment:

Extract ALL of these:

• ✈️ Flights: airline, flight #, departure/arrival times+airports, terminal, gate, confirmation #
• 🏨 Hotels: name, address, check-in/out times, confirmation #
• 🚗 Car rentals: company, pickup/dropoff times+locations, confirmation #
• 📋 Transfers: shuttle times, train bookings

Create these calendar events:

1. Flight departure — include terminal, gate, flight # in description
2. Flight arrival — for connecting flights too
3. Hotel check-in — with address and confirmation #
4. Hotel check-out — with reminder to pack
5. Car pickup/dropoff — with location details

Travel-specific reminders:

• Flight: 3 hours before (domestic), 4 hours before (international)
• Hotel check-out: Morning of departure
• Include all confirmation numbers in event descriptions

8. Batch Processing

When scanning an inbox for events:

1. Fetch unread emails (or emails from last N days)
2. Filter out noise — apply ignore patterns
3. Extract from each — run extraction framework
4. Deduplicate across emails — same event mentioned in multiple threads
5. Sort by date — nearest first
6. Present grouped summary:

📬 Inbox Scan: 47 unread → 12 with calendar items → 18 events found

THIS WEEK (Feb 13-19):
1. 🔴 Sprint Review — Thu Feb 13, 3:00 PM
2. 🔴 1:1 with Manager — Fri Feb 14, 10:00 AM
...

NEXT WEEK (Feb 20-26):
5. 🟡 Team Lunch — date TBD (mentioned in 2 emails)
...

DEADLINES:
⚠️ Q1 Report — Due Feb 28 (15 days) → [Submit here](url)
⚠️ Conference RSVP — Due Feb 20 (7 days) → [RSVP](url)

9. Edge Cases

10. Session Memory

Track user preferences across sessions:

# memory/email-calendar-prefs.yaml
default_timezone: "America/New_York"
default_calendar: "Work"
default_reminder_minutes: 30
auto_create_patterns:
  - "standup"
  - "1:1"
ignore_patterns:
  - "newsletter"
  - "marketing"
preferred_format: "12h"  # or "24h"
travel_reminder_hours: 3

Update preferences when user corrects you or states a preference.