# Build brief — a focused alternative to Reclaim.ai

> **Verdict:** Partly, if you narrow it · **Buildability:** 63/100 · **Category:** Tasks Calendar
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/reclaim-ai
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Reclaim.ai. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Reclaim.ai** — Smart calendar scheduling for habits, tasks, breaks, and meetings. It currently costs $12/mo.

A personal auto-blocker is buildable, but two-way calendar sync, scheduling links, team features, and conflict-safe automation are upkeep-heavy.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Reclaim.ai that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

Read free/busy, create flexible calendar holds for tasks/habits, adjust when meetings move, and expose settings.

- Build a focused single-user workflow with real persistence, search, and export.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Scheduling logic.
- Hosted backend.
- Background workers.
- Notifications.

### Data and integrations

- Google Calendar OAuth.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build me a personal calendar auto-blocker to replace Reclaim.ai, for one Google
Calendar, mine. Requirements:

- A Node script on a 30-minute cron (node-cron or plain crontab): googleapis for
  Calendar, better-sqlite3 for state, config in a YAML file. No web UI.
- config.yaml defines habits and tasks: name, duration, ideal window (e.g. gym, 60 min,
  weekdays 16:00-19:00), times per week, and priority.
- Each run: read free/busy for the next 7 days and place holds for unscheduled habits
  inside their windows, highest priority first.
- Tag every event it creates with a marker string in the description; the script may
  only ever move or delete events carrying that marker.
- If a meeting lands on a hold, re-place the hold at the next free slot in its window
  and append the move to a plain-text log.
- `blocker plan` prints next week's placements as a table before anything is written;
  `blocker clear` removes every machine-created hold.
- OAuth client credentials and refresh token in .env; the Google Cloud console setup
  is genuinely annoying, so do it before writing any code.
- Out of scope: scheduling links, team coordination, and multi-calendar juggling. Never
  touch or decline events it did not create.
- README: Google Cloud console steps, the calendar scopes needed, and the first-run auth
  flow.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Team coordination.
- Smart rescheduling polish.
- Scheduling links.
- Calendar edge cases.
- Connectors, OAuth flows, and vendor API changes require constant upkeep.
- The last 20 percent is sync, migration fidelity, speed, and edge cases.

## What you still own after launch

- Secure credentials, rotate secrets, and handle provider rate limits.
- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.
- Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change.

## Risk

**Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: high. No independent one-shot implementation is linked yet.

## Prior art

Working open-source software you can read, fork, or borrow from before starting:

- [Cal.com](https://github.com/calcom/cal.com) — Open-source scheduling platform; useful prior art for calendar OAuth and scheduling workfl

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Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/reclaim-ai