nocal/README.md

# Nocal

Nocal is a fast, local-first C++20 month calendar designed for the Linux
terminal and Hyprland. It presents appointments inside a six-week month grid and
inherits its colors from your terminal theme.

This repository currently contains the first local-calendar vertical slice:
date/domain logic, guarded atomic iCalendar persistence, add/edit/delete forms,
a responsive ANSI terminal UI with month and agenda views, explicit safe
calendar import/export, tests, and Linux launch integration. A provider-neutral
SQLite cache now provides the durable boundary required before
Office 365 or any other remote provider is connected. See
[the product specification](docs/PRODUCT.md),
[architecture](docs/ARCHITECTURE.md), and [roadmap](docs/ROADMAP.md).

## Controls

Use arrow keys or `h j k l` to move, `PageUp`/`PageDown` or `p`/`n` to change
month, and `t` for today. On a day with appointments, `Tab` and `Shift-Tab`
move focus through them and `Enter` opens the appointment reader. In the
reader, arrows/Vim keys or Tab variants browse the day's appointments and
`Esc` returns to the month. Press `g` to open a read-only 42-day agenda starting
on the selected date. Arrows, `j`/`k`, or Tab variants choose an occurrence;
`Enter` returns to the month at that exact occurrence. `PageUp`/`PageDown` or
`p`/`n` shift the agenda by 42 days, while `Esc` or `g` returns without changing
the month selection. Press `c` to open the calendar picker; arrows or
`j`/`k` select a calendar and `Enter` toggles its in-session visibility. Press
`a` to add an appointment. Focus an
appointment and press `e` to edit it or `d` to delete it. Forms use `Tab` and
`Shift-Tab` (or arrows) between fields, `Space` for the all-day toggle,
`Ctrl-S` to save, and `Esc` to cancel. Back in the calendar, `u` undoes the
last successful mutation and `Ctrl-R` redoes it. Press `/` to search titles,
descriptions, locations, and calendar IDs. Search results use arrows or
`j`/`k`; `Enter` jumps to the exact occurrence and `Esc` returns to the month.
The calendar picker and search are also available over the agenda with `c` and
`/`. Add, edit, and delete remain month-view workflows.
Press `?` for help and `q` to quit.

## Build and run

```sh
nix-shell --run 'meson setup build && meson compile -C build'
./build/nocal --demo
```

Run the tests with `meson test -C build --print-errorlogs`. Nocal reads
`$XDG_DATA_HOME/nocal/calendar.ics` by default (falling back to
`~/.local/share/nocal/calendar.ics`), or accepts another `.ics` path as its
positional argument. `--demo` adds a few unsaved sample appointments and
`--print` emits a non-interactive frame. Weeks start on Monday by default. Pass
`--week-start DAY`, where `DAY` is exactly one of `monday`, `tuesday`,
`wednesday`, `thursday`, `friday`, `saturday`, or `sunday`, to rotate the month
grid and its weekday header. This is display-only: it does not change stored
events, recurrence interpretation, agenda windows, or calendar interchange.

Calendar interchange is explicit, non-interactive, and network-free:

```sh
nocal --import SOURCE.ics --calendar TARGET.ics
nocal --export DESTINATION.ics --calendar SOURCE.ics
```

Import atomically merges source events into the target. An event whose UID and
all fields exactly match an existing event is skipped. The complete operation
is rejected before the target is written if either file is unsafe to
round-trip or contains empty or duplicate UIDs or invalid intervals, or if an
imported UID collides with a different target event. A successful merge that
adds events retains the target's exact previous bytes as `TARGET.ics.bak`; an
import containing only exact duplicates does not rewrite the target or its
backup.

Export validates the source and atomically creates a canonical calendar at the
destination. It refuses to overwrite any existing destination and rejects a
source that fails event validation or that Nocal cannot safely round-trip.
`--import` and `--export` are mutually exclusive and cannot be combined with
`--demo`, `--print`, or `--restore-backup`.

Nocal expands and safely round-trips a focused iCalendar recurrence subset:
daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rules with interval, count or until, common
weekly/monthly/yearly selectors, compatible DATE or DATE-TIME `RDATE` additions,
`EXDATE`, floating times, UTC, and system IANA `TZID` names. Occurrences merge
`DTSTART`, rule expansion, and `RDATE`, remove duplicate starts, and then apply
`EXDATE`. Recurring instances are individually navigable; edit and delete
clearly operate on the entire series.

Search expands recurring matches within five years on either side of the
currently selected date. This finite window keeps unbounded recurrence rules
responsive while one-time and recurring results share the same chronological
result list. Agenda recurrence expansion is bounded to its visible 42-day
window. Hidden calendars are excluded consistently from the month grid,
agenda, appointment focus, and search. Visibility and agenda position are
session-only presentation state; saves always retain events from hidden
calendars.

Calendars containing features this version cannot preserve—such as `RDATE`
periods or values incompatible with the event's `DTSTART` time basis or `TZID`,
detached `RECURRENCE-ID` overrides, ordinal `BYDAY`, embedded `VTIMEZONE`
definitions, alarms, or attendees—remain browsable but read-only. This guard
prevents a local edit from silently discarding unknown data.

Every replacement checks that the source has not changed since it was loaded.
If another Nocal instance or an external editor changes the file, the mutation
is rejected and the in-memory change is rolled back. Successful replacements
retain the immediately previous bytes as `calendar.ics.bak`. Run
`nocal --restore-backup [CALENDAR.ics]` for an explicit, atomic recovery; the
backup itself is kept so recovery can be repeated.

For a popup calendar binding and version-specific Hyprland rules, see
[Hyprland integration](docs/HYPRLAND.md).

## Remote-provider foundation

The remote-provider foundation is a private local SQLite database in WAL mode,
separate from the interactive `.ics` file workflow. Its schema is migrated by
version in all-or-nothing transactions. It preserves raw provider payloads,
inactive calendars, and tombstoned events so synchronization cannot silently
discard data that the current application does not understand. Each opaque
provider cursor is scoped to a calendar and synchronization window and is
committed atomically with the pulled page it represents. Normalized event
instances provide immutable snapshot input, while transactional outbox and
conflict records are reserved for later write synchronization.

This is a persistence prerequisite, not working Office 365 integration. Nocal
does not yet perform OAuth, make Graph requests, or synchronize a remote
calendar. OAuth tokens and other secrets will never be stored in SQLite; they
belong in the Freedesktop Secret Service. The next implementation step is an
injectable HTTP boundary with PKCE authentication and deterministic fake
transports, followed by read-only Microsoft Graph delta synchronization.