Setup routine fetch

Set up the routine fetch

This skill creates a scheduled task on the user's machine that automatically pulls newly-finished Teams transcripts during their workday. It replaces the old hand-copy workflow (copying a prompt into a scheduled task by hand) with a guided setup.

The task it creates is named teams-transcripts-routine, runs hourly on weekdays, and on each run invokes the companion teams-transcript-fetch skill for any meeting that has genuinely finished. This skill only creates the task — it never fetches transcripts itself.

---

Prerequisites

1. The teams-transcript-fetch skill must be installed (it ships in this same teams-transcripts plugin). The scheduled task this skill creates calls it on each run. If it is not available, tell the user to install the plugin first and stop.
2. Desktop app vs. CLI — this decides how the task is registered. Durable local scheduled tasks are a Claude Code desktop app feature: the desktop app ships a built-in create_scheduled_task tool (backing ~/.claude/scheduled-tasks/) out of the box, with no configuration. The standalone terminal CLI does not have it, and its schedulers don't fit this routine — cloud schedule / RemoteTrigger runs in an isolated sandbox with no access to your local files or Microsoft 365 connector, and session-scoped CronCreate / /loop jobs are in-memory and expire in ~7 days. So branch on the tool:
   • If create_scheduled_task is available (desktop app) → do the Automatic setup below (steps 1–6).
   • If it is NOT (terminal CLI, or any session without it) → do not substitute the cloud or in-memory schedulers. Go to Manual setup (the section right after step 6): still interview and generate the fully filled-in routine, then hand it to the user with registration steps, leading with the representative message quoted there so it's clear why automatic setup isn't possible in that session.
3. A Microsoft 365 / Outlook MCP connector is required at run time by the fetch skill, not by this setup step. You may check for one (a tool whose name ends with __outlook_calendar_search) and warn the user if it's missing, but do not block setup on it — the routine discovers the connector on each run and logs a skip if none is connected.

---

Automatic setup (Claude Code desktop app)

Use this path when create_scheduled_task is available. Steps 1–3 (resolve dir, interview, compute cutoff) are shared with Manual setup; steps 4–6 do the actual registration.

1. Resolve the output directory (do not hardcode a path)

The routine, like the fetch skill, resolves its output directory at run time from an environment variable. Resolve and show the current value:

TRANSCRIPTS_DIR="${TEAMS_TRANSCRIPTS_DIR:-$HOME/Documents/Transcripts}"
echo "$TRANSCRIPTS_DIR"

Tell the user: "Transcripts will be saved to <resolved path>. To use a different folder, set TEAMS_TRANSCRIPTS_DIR in your shell profile (~/.zshrc / ~/.bashrc) before the task runs — I won't bake a literal path into the task." Do not write an absolute path into the task prompt; the task resolves the env var itself on every run.

2. Interview the user (use AskUserQuestion)

Confirm only what's genuinely per-user. Keep it short.

• Working hours → these become the cron hour range. Default: 8am–5pm, weekdays (0 8-17 * * 1-5). Offer the default plus a couple of alternatives (e.g. 9am–6pm 0 9-18 * * 1-5, 10am–5pm 0 10-17 * * 1-5), and let them give a custom range. The task runs at the top of each hour within the range; cron is evaluated in the user's local timezone.
• Output directory → confirm the resolved path from step 1 looks right (see note above about the env var). No need to ask if they've clearly already set it.

Do not ask about the activation cutoff — it is always "now" (next step).

3. Compute the activation cutoff (= now)

The routine must never backfill historic meetings, so it ignores anything that ended before the moment it was set up. Capture the current time as the cutoff with an explicit UTC offset so the comparison against calendar events (which the connector returns in UTC) is unambiguous:

date "+%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z"

This produces e.g. 2026-07-17T18:00:00-0700 — the offset (-0700) is what lets the routine compare the cutoff against UTC event times correctly. A naive timestamp with no offset would be off by the local–UTC difference (hours) near the cutoff instant. Use this value as the ACTIVATION CUTOFF in the task prompt below. This is set once, at creation, and is what stops the first run from pulling the user's entire meeting history.

4. Check for an existing routine task

List scheduled tasks and look for one with id teams-transcripts-routine. If it already exists, tell the user and ask whether to overwrite it (re-create with the new settings) or leave it as-is — do not silently create a duplicate. Creating with the same taskId overwrites the existing task.

5. Create the scheduled task

Create a task with:

• taskId: teams-transcripts-routine
• description: Fetch newly-finished Teams transcripts hourly on weekdays
• cronExpression: the range from step 2 (default 0 8-17 * * 1-5), local time
• prompt: the routine prompt. Read the bundled routine-prompt.md (sibling of this file) and use the fenced prompt block from it verbatim, substituting <ACTIVATION-CUTOFF> with the timestamp from step 3. Do not substitute anything else — the path stays as the env-var expression so it resolves at run time.

routine-prompt.md is the single source of truth for the prompt text — do not paraphrase it or keep a second copy here.

6. Report back

Confirm to the user, plainly:

1. The task teams-transcripts-routine was created, with its schedule in words (e.g. "top of each hour, 8am–5pm, weekdays, local time") and the activation cutoff used.
2. Where transcripts will be saved (the resolved TRANSCRIPTS_DIR).
3. Scheduled tasks run only while the Claude Code app is open; if it's closed when a run is due, it runs on next launch.
4. How to test it now: run the task manually ("Run now") — on an empty day it should just append a checked, nothing new line to $TRANSCRIPTS_DIR/_log.md.
5. How to pause or remove it later (this skill doesn't manage that): pause with update_scheduled_task (enabled: false) and remove with delete_scheduled_task, both keyed off the id teams-transcripts-routine.

---

Manual setup (terminal CLI, or any session without create_scheduled_task)

Reach here when the scheduled-task tool is not available (see Prerequisite 2). Do not fall back to the cloud schedule skill or CronCreate — neither can run this routine. Instead:

M1. Lead with the representative message

Tell the user plainly why you can't create it here, and that you'll hand them a ready-to-add routine:

"Heads up — this routine has to run on the Claude Code desktop app. Durable local scheduled tasks (the kind that run on a schedule and can reach your local Transcripts folder and your Microsoft 365 connector) are a built-in desktop-app feature; the terminal CLI you're in right now doesn't provide that scheduler. The CLI's alternatives don't fit — cloud routines can't see your local files or connector, and /loop jobs are session-only and expire after about a week. So I can't create the task from here, but I've filled in the exact routine for you to add in the desktop app — it takes about a minute."

M2. Still run steps 1–3

Resolve the output dir, interview working hours, and compute the activation cutoff (= now), exactly as in the automatic path, so you can produce a complete, filled-in routine.

M3. Output the ready-to-register routine

Print the full task for the user to copy, with the cutoff already substituted and the cron they chose:

Task name / id:  teams-transcripts-routine
Description:     Fetch newly-finished Teams transcripts hourly on weekdays
Schedule (cron): 0 8-17 * * 1-5      (or the range they chose; local time)

Prompt:
<the "Routine task prompt" from step 5, with ACTIVATION CUTOFF filled in>

M4. Give the registration steps

• Open the Claude Code desktop app → Routines in the sidebar → New routine → Local.
• Paste the prompt, set the schedule to the cron shown, name it teams-transcripts-routine, and save.
• (Equivalently, from any desktop-app session you can just ask: "create a local scheduled task named teams-transcripts-routine, cron 0 8-17 * * 1-5, with this prompt: …" — the desktop app will create it.)
• The prompt to paste is the fenced block in routine-prompt.md, which also documents the two set-once values and the by-hand steps.

Once added on the desktop app, it behaves identically to the automatic path.

---

Notes on portability

• No secrets, no server IDs. The created task discovers the M365 connector at run time by the __outlook_calendar_search tool-name suffix, exactly like the fetch skill — nothing connector-specific is written into the task.
• No literal paths. The task resolves ${TEAMS_TRANSCRIPTS_DIR:-$HOME/Documents/Transcripts} on every run.
• Completeness is preserved. The 20-minute settle buffer and defer/retry logic live in the task prompt, and the fetch skill's own step-4.5 in-progress guard is the final backstop.
• The only per-machine value baked in at creation is the activation cutoff (the setup timestamp), which is exactly what should be machine/time-specific.