School day-off alerts
Emails both parents 14 days before either kid's first day off school, and says what the other kid is doing that day.
- Why
- To know early whether it is a childcare gap or a shared day off.
- How long
- Built August 2026
How I built it
- Got both kids' school calendars into Google Calendar. Most schools post a calendar link on their website: in Google Calendar, choose Other calendars, then From URL, and paste it.
- Asked Claude Code for a short Python script that reads both calendars for the next 14 days and finds days off. Tentative events don't count: one once flagged a petting zoo as a day off.
- Had the script email both of us through Gmail, naming the day off and what the other kid is doing that day.
- Put it on GitHub and let GitHub Actions run it every morning for free, so nobody has to remember to check. I set the time zone inside the script: when we traveled, it was the only scheduled job that didn't fire seven hours early.
- To copy it you need
- Claude, or the AI of your choice to write the script, a Google account with the school calendars in it, and a free GitHub account to run it every morning.
Try it yourself
Copy this prompt and paste it into ChatGPT or Claude to try it yourself.
I want to copy a setup from Carley Hart's desktop on whatarewebuilding.ai/desktops/carley: a daily check that emails both parents two weeks before either kid has a day off school, and says what the other kid is doing that day. Here is how hers works: both school calendars are subscribed in Google Calendar. A short Python script reads the next 14 days and looks for days off (it skips "tentative" events, after one counted a petting zoo as a day off). It emails both parents through Gmail, and GitHub Actions runs it free every morning. I have never written code. Walk me through building the same thing for my family one step at a time, starting with getting my kids' school calendars into Google Calendar. Ask me for anything you need.
Tools I used for this project
