June 6, 2025

Your CLI Tasks, In Every Calendar App

Four days ago, we quietly shipped calendar subscriptions. Today, developers worldwide are seeing their CLI tasks appear in Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, and Outlook across all their devices.

The gap we filled: Your terminal holds your real work. Your calendar shows your meetings. Never the two shall meet… until now.

What Just Shipped

📅 Universal Calendar Subscriptions

One command gives you a live calendar feed that works everywhere:

$ tycana calendar subscribe
Calendar subscription created!
📱 Add this URL to any calendar app:
   https://app.tycana.com/calendar/feed/your-secure-token.ics

🍎 iOS Setup: Settings → Calendar → Add Subscription
📧 Google: Other calendars → Subscribe to calendar  
📬 Outlook: Add calendar → From internet

Your scheduled tasks now appear alongside meetings, with automatic updates every 15 minutes.

⏰ Smart Scheduling with Natural Language

Transform any task into a calendar event:

$ tycana schedule 1 "tomorrow 2pm" --duration 1h
Scheduled "Review PR #234" for Friday, Jun 7 at 2:00 PM (1h)

$ tycana schedule 3 "next monday 9am"  
Scheduled "Team standup prep" for Monday, Jun 10 at 9:00 AM

The CLI understands your intent. The calendar shows your plan.

📊 Timeline Visualization

See your entire day at a glance:

$ tycana today --timeline

📅 Friday, June 7, 2025

   9:00 AM  │ 📅 Team standup prep
  10:30 AM  │ 📅 Review PR #234 (1h)
  ➤ 11:45 AM  Now
   2:00 PM  │ ⚡ Sprint planning (due today)
   3:30 PM  │ 📅 Architecture review (2h)

Also due today:
  • Submit expense report
  • Update project docs

Current time marker shows exactly where you are. Visual grouping makes sense of busy days.

📁 Export to Any Calendar

Not ready for live subscriptions? Export when you need it:

$ tycana export calendar --from today --to "next week" > my_tasks.ics
5 scheduled tasks exported

$ tycana export calendar --project backend > backend_tasks.ics  
3 backend tasks exported

Import these files into any calendar application. Perfect for project planning or client deliverables.

The Technical Win

iOS Calendar Compatibility

Apple Calendar was rejecting our calendar feeds with cryptic 406 errors. The issue? Phoenix’s content negotiation system couldn’t handle Apple’s specific Accept: text/calendar headers.

Our fix: Custom calendar pipeline that bypasses content negotiation entirely. Now iOS Calendar subscribes seamlessly.

Result: Universal compatibility across Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Outlook, Thunderbird, and any RFC 5545 compliant calendar app.

Timezone Intelligence

The hardest problem: ensuring scheduled times display consistently between your CLI and calendar across different timezones.

Challenge: CLI stores times locally, backend serves globally, calendars interpret differently.

Solution: UTC storage with intelligent local display. All scheduled times now store in UTC format, convert to your local timezone for display, and generate calendar events in your correct timezone.

Impact: “Schedule for 2pm” means 2pm in your timezone, everywhere.

What Beta Testers Are Saying

“Game changer. I schedule tasks in terminal, they appear in my calendar next to meetings. My daily planning finally makes sense.”
— Jake M., Senior Backend Engineer

“The timeline view is incredible. I can see my whole day in terminal - tasks, meetings, everything. Way better than switching between apps.”
— Lisa R., Product Manager

“iOS Calendar subscription works flawlessly. My tasks sync faster than my meeting invites do.”
— David K., DevOps Lead

“Export feature saved my project. Generated ICS file with all milestone tasks, shared with client. They could import directly into their calendar system.”
— Rachel T., Consultant

Why This Changes Everything

For Individual Workflows

Before: Tasks trapped in terminal, calendar shows meetings only
After: Complete daily view in familiar calendar apps

Impact: You see the full picture when someone asks “Are you free Friday afternoon?”

For Team Coordination

Before: “I’m working on the API refactor” (but when?)
After: Team calendars show individual work blocks alongside meetings

Impact: Better collaboration through visibility

For Project Management

Before: Task deadlines in CLI, milestones in calendar - disconnected
After: Unified timeline showing both individual tasks and team milestones

Impact: Nothing falls through the cracks

The Data Story

Since launching calendar subscriptions 4 days ago:

47 active calendar subscriptions across iOS, Android, macOS, Windows
Average 12 scheduled tasks per user (up from 3 before timeline view)
Zero subscription errors after iOS compatibility fix
15-minute refresh interval keeps calendars current

Beta testers are scheduling 4x more tasks since timeline visualization launched.

What’s Coming Next

Immediate Focus: Polish Sprint

Before we build new features, we’re perfecting what exists:

Comprehensive edge case testing
Performance optimization for large task lists
Error message improvements
Cross-platform calendar compatibility verification

Goal: Enterprise-ready reliability

Next Phase Options (You Decide)

We’re choosing our next direction based on user feedback:

Option A: Business Growth

Freemium limits with graceful upgrade prompts
30-day Pro trials for new users
Premium feature gates for calendar functionality

Option B: AI-Enhanced Planning

tycana plan command that learns your patterns
Smart scheduling suggestions based on your productivity rhythms
Daily optimization: “You usually do code reviews in the morning”

Tell us which matters more →

The Vision Delivered

Three phases in, we’ve proven the concept:

Phase 1: Your tasks follow you across devices
Phase 2: Cloud sync that respects local-first philosophy
Phase 3: Calendar integration that actually works

Result: A task manager that fits how developers actually work.