hey-you

Human-readable CRUD wrapper for recurring OS time triggers.

Translates human time expressions into cron or systemd timers — whichever your system uses.

hey-you repeat "HH>1MI<5"           "aider --no-git --message 'health check'"
hey-you repeat "every monday at 9"  "aider-skills run weekly-summary"
hey-you list
hey-you explain "0 9 * * 1"
hey-you resolve "HH>1MI<5"
hey-you remove 3

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Why

Tool	Input	Who runs it
raw crontab	0 9 * * 1 — you must know cron syntax	you
schedule (PyPI)	Python method chains — runs inside your process	your Python process
hey-you	"every monday at 9" or "HH>1MI<5"	the OS — process exits

The OS owns the timer. hey-you is a one-shot translator and crontab/systemd manager.

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Installation

pipx install os-hey-you

Requires Python ≥ 3.12.

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Placeholder Notation

Built on three POSIX/GNU standards:

• Field names: strftime(3)
• Relative offsets: GNU date --date
• Target format: crontab(5)

Supported tokens (YAGNI — no YYYY, no SS: standard cron has neither):

Token	Field	Range
MM	month	01-12
DD	day	01-31
HH	hour 24h	00-23
MI	minute	00-59

Each token may carry an offset: >N adds, <N subtracts.

HH>1MI<5    →  hour+1, minute-5
MM>1DD      →  next month, current day
HH MI       →  current hour and minute, no offset

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Backend Detection

hey-you auto-detects your OS scheduler:

systemd PID 1?  →  writes ~/.config/systemd/user/hey-you-NNNN.timer
else            →  writes user crontab entry

Override: HEY_YOU_BACKEND=systemd or HEY_YOU_BACKEND=cron.

On Fedora Silverblue, cron requires: rpm-ostree install cronie + restart. systemd is the default and preferred backend.

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CRUD

Operation	Command
C reate	hey-you repeat <expr> <command>
R ead	hey-you list
R ead	hey-you explain <cron>
R ead	hey-you resolve <expr>
D elete	hey-you remove <id>

Update = remove + repeat. YAGNI.

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Example Use Cases

Daily health check via aider

hey-you repeat "HH MI" "aider --no-git --message 'check project health'"

Weekly summary every Monday at 09:00

hey-you repeat "0 9 * * 1" "aider-skills run weekly-summary"

Understand an existing cron entry

hey-you explain "0 9 * * 1"
# every Monday at 09:00

Preview a placeholder without writing

hey-you resolve "HH>1MI<5"
# 25 17 * * *

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License

MIT — © roebi