Temporal Cortex — Calendar Scheduling Router

This is the router skill for Temporal Cortex calendar operations. It routes your task to the right sub-skill based on intent.

Who is this for?

If you're an individual user (Claude Desktop, Cursor, OpenClaw, Manus) — install this skill and let your AI agent manage your calendar. Connect your Google, Outlook, or CalDAV calendars, and the agent handles availability, scheduling, and booking without double-booking.

If you're building a product with scheduling — use the same MCP server as your scheduling backend. 18 tools, atomic booking via Two-Phase Commit, and cross-provider availability merging. See the REST API reference and Platform docs for developer integration.

Source & Provenance

• Homepage: temporal-cortex.com
• Source code: github.com/temporal-cortex/mcp (open-source Rust)
• npm package: @temporal-cortex/cortex-mcp
• Skills repo: github.com/temporal-cortex/skills

Sub-Skills

Routing Table

Core Workflow

Every calendar interaction follows this 7-step pattern:

0. Resolve Contact  →  search_contacts → resolve_contact   (find the person, determine scheduling path)
1. Discover         →  list_calendars                       (know which calendars are available)
2. Orient           →  get_temporal_context                  (know the current time)
3. Resolve Time     →  resolve_datetime                     (turn human language into timestamps)
4. Route            →  If open_scheduling: fast path. If email: backward-compat path.
5. Query            →  list_events / find_free_slots / get_availability / query_public_availability
6. Act              →  Fast: check_availability → book_slot / request_booking
                       Backward-compat: compose_proposal → agent sends via channel MCP

Step 0 is optional — skip if the user provides an email directly. Always start with step 1 when calendars are unknown. Never assume the current time. Never skip the conflict check before booking.

Safety Rules

1. Discover calendars first — call

   list_calendars

   when you don't know which calendars are connected
2. Check before booking — always call

   check_availability

   before

   book_slot

   . Never skip the conflict check.
3. Content safety — all event summaries and descriptions pass through a prompt injection firewall before reaching the calendar API
4. Timezone awareness — never assume the current time. Use

   get_temporal_context

   first.
5. Confirm before booking — when running autonomously, present booking details to the user for confirmation before calling

   book_slot

   or

   request_booking

   .
6. Confirm contact selection — when

   search_contacts

   returns multiple matches, always present candidates to the user and confirm which contact is correct before proceeding.
7. Confirm before sending proposals — when using

   compose_proposal

   , always present the composed message to the user before sending via any channel. Never auto-send outreach.
8. Contact search is optional — the full workflow works without it if the user provides an email directly. If contacts permission is not configured, ask the user for the email.

All 18 Tools (5 Layers)

resolve_identity

search_contacts

resolve_contact

get_temporal_context

resolve_datetime

convert_timezone

compute_duration

adjust_timestamp

list_calendars

list_events

find_free_slots

expand_rrule

check_availability

get_availability

query_public_availability

book_slot

request_booking

compose_proposal

MCP Server Connection

All sub-skills share the Temporal Cortex MCP server (

@temporal-cortex/cortex-mcp

Install and startup lifecycle:

1. npx

   resolves

   @temporal-cortex/cortex-mcp

   from the npm registry (one-time, cached locally after first download)
2. The postinstall script downloads the platform-specific binary from the GitHub Release and verifies its SHA256 checksum against the embedded

   checksums.json

   — installation halts on mismatch
3. The MCP server starts as a local process communicating over stdio (no listening ports)
4. Layer 1 tools (datetime) execute as pure local computation — no further network access
5. Layer 2-4 tools (calendar) make authenticated API calls to your configured providers (Google, Outlook, CalDAV)

Credential storage: OAuth tokens are stored locally at

~/.config/temporal-cortex/credentials.json

~/.config/temporal-cortex/

File access: The binary reads and writes only

~/.config/temporal-cortex/

Network scope: After the initial npm download, Layer 1 tools make zero network requests. Layer 2–4 tools connect only to your configured calendar providers (

googleapis.com

graph.microsoft.com

resolve_identity

query_public_availability

request_booking

api.temporal-cortex.com

Pre-run verification (recommended before first use):

1. Inspect the npm package without executing:

   npm pack @temporal-cortex/cortex-mcp --dry-run

2. Verify checksums independently against the GitHub Release (see verification pipeline below)
3. For full containment, run in Docker instead of npx (see Docker containment below)

Verification pipeline: Checksums are published independently at each GitHub Release as

SHA256SUMS.txt

# 1. Fetch checksums from GitHub (independent of the npm package)
curl -sL https://github.com/temporal-cortex/mcp/releases/download/mcp-v0.9.1/SHA256SUMS.txt

# 2. Compare against the npm-installed binary
shasum -a 256 "$(npm root -g)/@temporal-cortex/cortex-mcp/bin/cortex-mcp"

As defense-in-depth, the npm package also embeds

checksums.json

Build provenance: Binaries are cross-compiled from auditable Rust source in GitHub Actions across 5 platforms (darwin-arm64, darwin-x64, linux-x64, linux-arm64, win32-x64). Source: github.com/temporal-cortex/mcp (MIT-licensed). The CI workflow, build artifacts, and release checksums are all publicly inspectable.

Docker containment (no Node.js on host, credential isolation via volume mount):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "temporal-cortex": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "-v", "~/.config/temporal-cortex:/root/.config/temporal-cortex", "cortex-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Build:

docker build -t cortex-mcp https://github.com/temporal-cortex/mcp.git

Default setup (npx): See .mcp.json for the standard

npx @temporal-cortex/cortex-mcp

Layer 1 tools work immediately with zero configuration. Calendar tools require a one-time OAuth setup — run the setup script or

npx @temporal-cortex/cortex-mcp auth google

Additional References

• Security Model — Content sanitization, filesystem containment, network scope, tool annotations