He holds the week you do not control.

Four tabs to answer one question

“Am I free Thursday afternoon?” is a question with four places to look, and the one you forget is the one with the clash. The work calendar you cannot export. The family one your partner keeps. The client project in a different account. The feed from the system nobody has admin on.

You answer from memory, offer the time, and then rebook. With a colleague that costs five minutes. With a business partner it costs something you cannot put back.

Ask him in plain words

No syntax, no commands. The questions below are the ones people actually ask — about their own week, and about other people's.

IdesExample

You

When am I actually free this week?

Ides

Four clear stretches: Tuesday 09:00–11:00, Wednesday after 15:00, Thursday 14:00–17:00 and Friday morning. Thursday is the only one with nothing either side of it.

You

Put an hour with Daniel in the Thursday one.

Ides

Thursday 14:00–15:00 with Daniel. Shall I add it?

Added to your calendar after you confirmed.

IdesExample

You

When can Ana in Lisbon and Wei in Singapore both make it?

Ides

One window works for all three: 09:00 in Lisbon, 16:00 in Singapore, 10:00 for you. Tuesday and Thursday both have it free.

Time zones are arithmetic, and arithmetic is what you should not be doing at 23:00 the night before. Ask the question in your own words and the answer comes back in everyone's hours at once.

Or copy him into the email

The hardest scheduling is the kind that arrives as a message from someone outside your company. Forward it to ides@ and he answers the other side himself — with times you are genuinely free.

Email threadExample

From the other side

Could we find 45 minutes next week to go through the contract? Any afternoon works except Monday.

You, forwarding

Ides — sort this out, 45 minutes, prefer later in the week.

Ides, to them

Thursday 15:00 or Friday 14:00, both 45 minutes. Either works on our side — reply with the one you prefer.

They choose Thursday. Ides sends you one link; the invitation goes out when you open it and confirm.

You see every message in the thread. You write none of them, and nothing reaches a calendar without a click from you.

Show him instead of typing it

Most invitations do not arrive as text you can paste.

He proposes. You decide.

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is what makes an assistant with access to your calendar something you can live with.

• Nothing is written without a confirmation. Ides can add, move or remove an entry — and each one waits for you. In the app that is a button, and your session is what proves it was you.
• By email, the link is the authority. There is no session in a mail thread, so the confirmation is a long random token sent only to an address whose signature was verified. It is good once and expires in 48 hours.
• Opening that link does not act. Mail scanners follow links as a matter of course, so a confirmation that fired on opening would fire itself before you ever saw it. The link shows you what is proposed; a button on that page carries it out.
• He offers alternatives. When the obvious slot is taken he comes back with others, each confirmable in its own right, rather than asking you to start again.
• Tell him “just book it” and he stops asking — for that kind of request. It is a preference you give deliberately, not a mode he drifts into.

What he will not do

Shorter than the list of what he will, and more useful.

• He will not invent availability. If a calendar you connected says busy, that hour is not offered — including the work feed you cannot export.
• He cannot see what you have not connected. A calendar you never linked is invisible to him, and he will say so rather than guess around it.
• He will not move or cancel quietly. A change to something already in your calendar is a proposal like any other.
• He answers email only from a sender whose address checks out. A forwarded thread from an unverified sender does not become an instruction.