Schedule from the Terminal
Use Schedly's API from the command line with curl, httpie, or your own CLI scripts — check availability, create bookings, and manage your calendar without leaving the terminal.
Developers who spend their day in the terminal know that every tool that keeps you in the command line is a productivity win. Schedly's clean REST API makes it straightforward to build terminal-first scheduling workflows: check your availability with a single curl command, pipe availability data into scripts, create bookings from shell scripts, and integrate scheduling into your existing terminal-based productivity setup. Combined with Schedly's MCP server (accessible from Cursor and any MCP-compatible terminal AI assistant), developers can manage their entire scheduling workflow from the command line without ever opening a browser.
The results speak for themselves
Up and running in minutes
No technical setup. No developer required. Fully automated from day one.
Get your Schedly API key
Generate an API key from Settings → API in your Schedly account. The key is used as a Bearer token in every API request. Store it in your shell environment as SCHEDLY_API_KEY for convenient access in scripts and curl commands.
Query availability from the terminal
Call the Schedly availability endpoint with your event type ID and date range: curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer $SCHEDLY_API_KEY' 'https://api.schedly.io/v1/availability?event_type=abc123&start=2026-05-15&end=2026-05-22'. The response is a JSON array of available time slots.
Create bookings with a POST request
POST to /v1/bookings with the selected slot, attendee details, and any intake form data. The response includes the booking confirmation with calendar links and meeting details. Pipe the response to jq to extract just the confirmation URL or meeting time.
Automate with shell scripts or cron
Build scheduling workflows as shell scripts: check availability on a schedule, create bookings from intake data in CSV files, or trigger Schedly bookings from other command-line events. Schedly's API is a first-class component in any shell-based automation pipeline.
Everything built in. Nothing bolted on.
Every capability works together as a unified system — not a collection of disconnected features.
Full API Access via curl
Every Schedly API endpoint is accessible from curl with standard HTTP methods and JSON payloads. Check availability, create and cancel bookings, retrieve event type configurations, and list upcoming appointments — all from the terminal with no SDK installation required.
JSON Output Compatible with jq
Schedly API responses are clean, well-structured JSON designed for programmatic processing. Use jq to extract specific fields, filter availability by duration or time of day, or transform booking data into formats compatible with other CLI tools.
Shell Script Automation
Build scheduling automation in bash, zsh, or any shell scripting environment. Common patterns: availability checker that runs before scheduling a meeting, bulk booking creator from a CSV of attendees, daily schedule reporter that formats your upcoming Schedly bookings, and webhook handler scripts.
MCP for Natural Language in the Terminal
Configure Schedly's MCP server in Cursor, Zed, or any terminal-integrated AI environment for natural language scheduling. Instead of constructing curl commands, describe what you need: 'Schedule a code review for Thursday' — the AI calls Schedly's API for you.
Webhook Processing via CLI Tools
Handle Schedly webhooks with simple HTTP servers built in any language: Node.js http module, Python's Flask or FastAPI, Go's net/http — all appropriate for lightweight webhook processing. Build event-driven scheduling automation that reacts to booking events.
Environment Variable and Secret Management
Store your Schedly API key in environment variables, .env files, or secret management tools (1Password CLI, Vault, AWS Secrets Manager) for secure credential management in terminal-based workflows. Schedly's API key authentication pattern follows standard CLI tool conventions.
Works for every service business
See how different industries apply AI scheduling to their specific workflows — and the results they get.
Developers create booking scripts that run from the terminal — 'book-review.sh feature-branch-name' automatically schedules a code review with the team and posts the Schedly link to Slack
DevOps teams trigger post-deploy review meetings from CI/CD pipelines via Schedly API — after a production deployment, a pipeline step creates a 30-minute review call for the on-call team
Data engineers schedule stakeholder review meetings after pipeline runs complete — when a weekly data report is generated, a Schedly booking is created automatically for the business intelligence review
Sysadmins use cron-triggered Schedly API calls to schedule regular maintenance windows, team standups, and stakeholder updates as part of automated system management workflows
Technical writers use terminal-based Schedly scripts to schedule content review meetings with engineering stakeholders when documentation milestones are committed to version control
Before vs. After AI Scheduling
The operational reality that changes the moment you go live.
- Phone tag and email back-and-forth for every booking
- 19%+ no-show rate with no systematic prevention
- Manual reminder calls consuming staff time every morning
- After-hours booking requests sent to voicemail
- Double-bookings from manual calendar management
- No data on booking patterns or no-show causes
- One link replaces all scheduling coordination — forever
- No-show rate drops to under 5% with three-touch reminders
- AI sends every reminder automatically — zero staff time
- 24/7 booking captures every after-hours lead instantly
- Zero double-bookings with real-time calendar intelligence
- Full analytics dashboard showing every booking pattern
Frequently asked questions
The Schedly API base URL is https://api.schedly.io/v1. All API requests use this base URL with HTTPS. Include your API key as a Bearer token in the Authorization header: Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY.
Use jq for JSON parsing in shell scripts — it is the standard tool for JSON processing in terminal environments. Install via brew (macOS), apt, or your system package manager. Common patterns: extract booking IDs (jq '.booking.id'), filter availability by time of day (jq '[.[] | select(.start | contains("T09"))]'), or extract all attendee emails from a booking list.
Yes. Schedly's API is appropriate for use in CI/CD pipelines and automation scripts. Store your Schedly API key as a CI/CD secret variable (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI all support secret variables) and call the Schedly API as a pipeline step with curl or a lightweight HTTP client.
Schedly does not currently publish an official CLI binary, but building a lightweight CLI wrapper around Schedly's REST API is straightforward. The most common approach is a shell script or Python script that wraps the key API endpoints with convenient command-line arguments. Schedly's OpenAPI spec can be used to auto-generate typed CLI wrappers in multiple languages.
Terminal-First Scheduling: Why Developers Build on the Schedly API
The terminal is the natural habitat of software developers, DevOps engineers, and systems-oriented technical professionals. The command line offers speed, composability, scriptability, and the satisfaction of tools that do exactly what you tell them without friction. Every productivity workflow that a developer can complete from the terminal — without switching to a browser or a GUI application — is a friction elimination that compounds across their working day. Scheduling has historically been one of the last remaining reasons developers leave the terminal: to navigate a calendar app, find a scheduling link, or create a meeting. Schedly's API changes this by making scheduling a terminal-native capability.
Composability: The Core Value of API-First Scheduling
The real power of Schedly's API in terminal environments is composability — the Unix principle that small, focused tools should be combinable into larger workflows. A curl command to Schedly's availability endpoint is a composable building block: pipe its output to jq, filter it with grep, format it with awk, feed it to another script, or use it as input to an AI model via a local LLM CLI. This composability means that scheduling logic can be embedded in any shell-based workflow without requiring a dedicated scheduling application. A git post-commit hook that schedules a code review, a cron job that creates weekly standup bookings, a CI/CD pipeline step that books a post-deploy review — all of these are trivial to build with Schedly's API and standard shell tools.
The Path from curl to MCP: Scheduling Infrastructure Evolution
The evolution of terminal-based scheduling mirrors the broader evolution of developer tools: from low-level API calls (curl) to higher-level abstractions (SDK wrappers, CLI tools) to natural language interfaces (MCP with AI assistants). Developers building on Schedly today often start with direct API calls in shell scripts, graduate to language-specific SDK wrappers for complex applications, and increasingly combine both approaches with MCP-based natural language interfaces for interactive scheduling requests. The same Schedly API infrastructure underlies all three interface levels — meaning the investment in Schedly integration pays dividends across the full spectrum of developer interaction patterns, from highly automated script-based workflows to conversational AI-assisted scheduling.
Start scheduling from your terminal — get a Schedly API key with any paid account.
Free plan available · Pro from $24/month · No credit card required
Stop Losing Bookings to
Scheduling Friction.
Schedly puts your calendar to work around the clock. Every lead, every client, and every meeting lands exactly where it should, automatically.