Guide

Manus AI Meeting Scheduler with Nylas CLI

Schedule meetings with natural language using Manus AI and Nylas CLI. Check availability, find mutual times, create events, and send invites — no manual calendar work.

Why use Manus for scheduling

Scheduling a meeting involves multiple steps: checking your own calendar, checking attendee availability, finding a mutual time slot, creating the event, and sending invites. Doing this manually means switching between calendars, copy-pasting times, and handling timezone math.

Manus handles the multi-step coordination. You describe what you want in plain language, and Manus plans and executes the steps. The Nylas CLI provides the calendar commands that Manus runs behind the scenes — listing events, checking availability, finding mutual times, and creating events.

Prerequisites

  1. A Manus account with the Nylas CLI Skill installed. See Create a Manus Skill for Email and Calendar for setup instructions.
  2. An authenticated Nylas grant with calendar access. The connected account (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) must have calendar permissions enabled.
  3. The Nylas CLI Skill activated. Type /nylas-cli in the Manus chat to load the Skill before making scheduling requests.

Check your availability

Start by asking Manus about your own schedule. This is useful before proposing times to others.

Prompt: "Am I free Thursday afternoon?"

Manus will run commands like:

# List events for the next 7 days
nylas calendar events list --days 7 --json

# Check your availability windows
nylas calendar availability check

The --json flag gives Manus structured output to parse. It will scan your Thursday afternoon for conflicts and report back whether you have open time slots.

Find a mutual time

When you need to meet with someone, Manus can find a time that works for both calendars.

Prompt: "Find a 30-minute slot with alice@company.com next week"

nylas calendar find-time --participants alice@company.com --duration 30m

The find-time command checks both your calendar and the participant's calendar (if they are on the same Nylas grant or organization) and returns available windows. Manus will present the options and let you pick.

Create an event

Once you have a time, ask Manus to create the event directly.

Prompt: "Schedule a team sync next Tuesday at 2pm for 30 minutes"

nylas calendar events create \
  --title "Team sync" \
  --start "2026-03-17 14:00" \
  --end "2026-03-17 14:30"

Manus translates "next Tuesday at 2pm" into the correct date and passes it to the CLI. The event appears on your calendar and invites are sent to any participants you specify.

Natural language scheduling

For more complex requests, the schedule ai command handles the entire flow — availability check, time selection, and event creation — in one step.

Prompt: "Book a 1-hour meeting with bob@company.com sometime next week"

nylas calendar schedule ai "1-hour meeting with bob@company.com next week"

This command combines availability lookup and event creation. Manus will confirm the proposed time with you before finalizing.

SKILL.md for calendar-only workflows

If you only need calendar capabilities (no email), you can create a focused Skill with a smaller instruction set. This saves context window tokens in the Manus sandbox.

---
name: nylas-calendar
description: >
  Check availability, find meeting times, and create calendar events.
  Uses the Nylas CLI. Activate when the user asks about scheduling,
  meetings, availability, or calendar.
metadata:
  author: nylas
  version: "1.0"
---

# Nylas Calendar

## Setup
If `nylas` is not available, run: `bash scripts/setup.sh`

## Commands

### List upcoming events
```bash
nylas calendar events list --days 7 --json
```

### Check availability
```bash
nylas calendar availability check
```

### Find mutual time
```bash
nylas calendar find-time --participants EMAIL --duration DURATION
```

### Create an event
```bash
nylas calendar events create --title "TITLE" --start "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" --end "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM"
```

### AI scheduling
```bash
nylas calendar schedule ai "DESCRIPTION"
```

## Rules
- Always use `--json` when parsing output.
- Confirm event details with the user before creating.
- Specify timezone in ISO 8601 format when the user provides one.

Timezone tips

Manus runs in a UTC sandbox. If you say "2pm" without specifying a timezone, the event may be created at 2pm UTC instead of your local time. Two ways to avoid this:

  • Specify timezone in your prompt: "Schedule at 2pm Eastern" or "Schedule at 2pm PST". Manus will convert to the correct offset.
  • Use ISO 8601 with offset: The CLI accepts timestamps like 2026-03-17T14:00:00-04:00 (Eastern Daylight Time). This removes ambiguity entirely.

If you schedule meetings across timezones frequently, add a line to your SKILL.md instructions: Always ask the user for their timezone before creating events.

FAQ

Can Manus schedule meetings across different calendar providers?

Yes. The Nylas CLI supports Gmail, Outlook (Microsoft 365 and Exchange), and other calendar providers through the Nylas API. Manus uses the CLI as its execution layer, so it works with any provider Nylas supports.

How does Manus handle timezones?

Manus runs in a UTC sandbox by default. Always specify your timezone in prompts or use ISO 8601 with offset. See the timezone tips section above.

What happens if there is a scheduling conflict?

The availability check and find-time commands detect conflicts before creating events. Manus will report the conflict and suggest alternative times rather than double-booking your calendar.

Next steps