Shirecal

Shirecal is a Val Town HTTP val that turns a JSON payload of Middle-earth events into an iCalendar (.ics) feed. The val stores events in Val Town blob storage and always serves the next upcoming instance for each event (including multi-day spans).

• GET / – Returns an .ics file with the next occurrence of every stored event.
• GET /?format=json – Returns the currently stored events as JSON.
• PUT / – Replaces all stored events. Body must be JSON shaped like { "events": ShireEvent[] }.

Create val
interface ShireEvent {
  start: string; // MM-DD
  end?: string; // MM-DD (optional)
  text: string; // Narrative snippet used as the calendar description
  characters: string[]; // Key figures tied to the event (e.g. ["Frodo", "Sam"])
  sourceText: string; // e.g. "The Two Towers"
  sourceChapter: string; // e.g. "The Forbidden Pool"
  sourceMovie?: string; // e.g. "The Two Towers (Extended Edition)"
  sourceTimestamp?: string; // HH:MM:SS within the chosen cut
  location: string; // Where the scene happens (best-effort label)
}

• start and end are month/day strings (MM-DD).
• Leave end blank for single-day events.
• When end is earlier than start (e.g. 12-29 to 01-02), the event wraps into the next year automatically.
• characters drives the calendar event summary (Gandalf's Journey, Frodo & Sam, etc.). Include the central figures mentioned in the narrative.
• sourceText and sourceChapter annotate where the moment appears in Tolkien's canon so subscribers can trace the scene.
• sourceMovie / sourceTimestamp (optional) point to the film adaptation and timestamp; use Not in film when the scene never made it to the screen.
• Movie deep links are generated at runtime from the timestamp using the official YouTube Movies URLs for each Extended Edition.
• location keeps a concise label for the place; we surface it inside the event body and set the ICS LOCATION property.