Calendar prompts: scope recurrence changes to the right instances

Last updated: 5 Oct 202611 min read

tutorial

A recurring meeting represents a rule plus individual occurrences and exceptions. A prompt should ask whether the user intends to edit one occurrence, this and later occurrences, or the whole series. Those scopes can produce different effects and guest notifications. Preserve the recurrence rule, time zone, exception dates, and organizer identity in the review packet. Do not infer a series-wide change from 'move next Tuesday.' A local display may show only a few generated occurrences, so check the underlying event identity before editing. After a change, inspect both the target occurrence and unaffected neighboring occurrences.

Operational case

Suppose the Aster pilot review becomes a weekly series for four weeks. The owner says 'move next Tuesday's call by 30 minutes.' The assistant targets only that dated occurrence and leaves the other three at their prior time. A separate later request to move all remaining sessions needs a new scope review. If one occurrence was cancelled, the assistant must not recreate it while updating the series. The calendar service returns exception or instance IDs that the application retains for verification.

Series: four weekly sessions, one named time zone.
Request: move next Tuesday only.
Target: dated instance, not whole recurrence rule.
Verify: target moved; other three unchanged.
Later series-wide request -> separate scope and notice review.

Performance and operating cost

Checking K generated occurrences and E exceptions is O(K+E) for a bounded review window. A series-wide update can affect many more guests and dates than a single-instance edit, so the prompt should present an effect count before approval. Avoid materializing an unbounded recurrence solely for a preview; choose a finite horizon and state it. A missing exception record can cause a cancelled meeting to reappear, so include cancellation cases in release tests.

Common Mistakes

Do not turn 'next Tuesday' into a change to every future meeting.
Do not lose a cancelled-instance exception during a series edit.
Do not claim an unbounded series was fully reviewed from a short preview.

Connected lessons

prompt engineering

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