Natural Language

Natural language

You type a sentence; Tisty takes the date out of it, leaves the sentence readable, and shows you what it understood before anything is saved — as chips you can correct with one click.

It is rules running on your machine: no model, no request, no cloud. It reads English and Spanish, following the language you chose. What it cannot read it leaves alone rather than guess, and when it reads something it was not sure of, it dates it and says so out loud, so you can correct it.

The examples below come from the parser's own test cases, which define exactly how far it goes. They assume today is Wednesday 5 August 2026, 09:00.

Days

You write	Date
review the report today	Wed 5 Aug
review the report tomorrow	Thu 6 Aug
deploy the day after tomorrow	Fri 7 Aug
standup on monday	Mon 10 Aug
standup next tuesday	Tue 11 Aug
standup on wednesday	Wed 12 Aug — today is Wednesday, so it means the next one
renew the certificate in 3 days	Sat 8 Aug
check back in 2 weeks	Wed 19 Aug
deliver the report within 3 days	Sat 8 Aug
meeting monday 15	15 Aug — the weekday names it, the number dates it
meeting monday 3	3 Sep — a day of the month already past rolls to next month

Dates

You write	Date
pay on august 15 / pay on aug 15	15 Aug 2026
ship it on september 3rd	3 Sep 2026
pay on jul 30	30 Jul 2027 — no year written and July is gone, so the next one
pay on 2026-07-30	30 Jul 2026 — a written year is never rolled forward
pay on 15/8 · pay on 15/8/2026	15 Aug 2026
deliver on 24/12/26	24 Dec 2026 — a two-digit year belongs to this century

Warning

Slash dates are read day/month. pay on 8/15 (the US order) is not read: month 15 does not exist, so nothing is invented — and nothing is read either.

Periods

You write	Date
tidy the desk this week	Sun 9 Aug — the end of the week
rest this weekend	Sat 8 Aug
close the books end of month	31 Aug
review it next week	Sun 16 Aug — the end of the period
review it next month	30 Sep — the last day of next month

Times

You write	Time
deploy tomorrow at 10	10:00
deploy tomorrow at 10:30am	10:30
deploy tomorrow at 4pm	16:00
lunch tomorrow at noon	12:00
call the bank at 3	15:00 — from 1 to 6, the afternoon is read, and said out loud
call the bank at 7	07:00 — from 7 on, the digits are taken as written
call the bank at 03:00	03:00 — a leading zero is 24-hour notation
call at 8 in the evening	20:00
call at 5 in the morning	05:00
call at 12 at night / meeting at 12 am	00:00

A bare number is only a time behind «at»: turn the volume to 12 stays a title, and so does upgrade to 10.2 tomorrow (10.2 is a version).

Date versus deadline

A date is when you plan to do it. A deadline is when it stops being possible. Four words open a deadline: before, by, due and until.

You write	Reads as
send the report on friday	date: Fri 7 Aug
send the report by friday	deadline: Fri 7 Aug
renew the domain due august 30	deadline: 30 Aug
send the report until friday	deadline: Fri 7 Aug
ship the report tomorrow before friday	date: tomorrow and deadline: Friday

Repeating

Naming a day fixes the series to that day; an interval counts from when you last did it — which is what a habit wants.

You write	Repeats
take out the bins every tuesday	every week, on Tuesday, whether or not it went out last week
standup every monday at 9	every Monday at 09:00
water the plants every 3 days	3 days after each time you do it
stretch every day / back up the laptop daily	daily, from the doing
check the backups every 2 weeks	every 2 weeks
pay the rent every month / monthly	monthly
renew the domain every year / annually	yearly
take the pill every day until september 30	daily, ending 30 Sep — «until» on a series says when it ends
take the pills every day at 10 for 30 days	daily at 10:00; «for 30 days» stays in the title

A duration is not a date: run the tests for 30 days and a course of 3 months stay as written. And «daily», «weekly», «monthly» in the middle of a phrase are adjectives: write the daily report or cancel my monthly subscription repeat nothing.

Markers

You write	Means
#backend #urgent	tags
@work	the list
!do · !schedule · !delegate · !minor	the quadrant (Tasks); also !now, !decide, !wont
!important	schedule — important without urgency
!DO	the same as !do

!1 and !urgent set nothing: the quadrants are not a scale, and «urgent» fits two of them.

When it leaves words alone

The parser is careful not to eat your title:

You write	Why
review monday's report	«monday's» names the report
tomorrow's meeting	the possessive names the meeting
meeting in the morning	a part of the day, not a day
ship it 3 days ago	the past has no date here
read 2/3 · ratio 16/9	a chapter or a fraction — a slash date needs a word in front
set up 24/7 support	«24/7» is a phrase, not a date
buy milk tomorrow and bread on friday	two days: the last one wins, the first stays as text

Escape it with quotes

Wrap the whole sentence in quotes and nothing is interpreted:

"standup on monday"

In Spanish

The same rules, in Spanish: mañana a las 10, el viernes, pasado mañana, en 3 días, antes del viernes, hasta el 30 de agosto, cada martes, todos los lunes a las 9, cada 3 días, diariamente.

Quadrant	English	Spanish
Do	!do, !now	!hacer, !ahora
Schedule	!schedule, !decide, !important	!planificar, !decidir, !importante
Delegate	!delegate	!delegar, !delega
Minor	!minor, !wont	!prescindible, !descartable