Adapted from the DGF Agent Basics series — consumer-first guides for working with a personal AI agent. Pick only what you need.
> Pick only what you need. This skill is individual. This is one person's thoughts, offered as a pre-configured help, not a must. Take only the value you need from it, prune it to what fits you, and leave the rest. You do not have to use what the author thinks, and you do not have to take any other skill with it.
Summary: Plan an event step by step, or find local events that fit your interests, with venues and events verified on their own pages. Your agent never books or buys a ticket. Optional.
Use this skill when the user wants to plan an event, or to find local events in their area that fit their interests. It has two lanes: plan an event step by step, and look up events. It never books a venue, buys a ticket, or spends money for the user.
This skill stands alone. An agent that knows nothing else can follow it from the startup sequence below, then the events method. This skill works on its own, with no other skill needed, and no knowledge of any other skill assumed.
Startup and how to use
Start by getting your own personal agent. Get your own personal agent and set it up. Bring your own accounts and logins. Use nothing that belongs to anyone else.
Tell your agent what you care about in plain words. Name your business, your work, your family, your hobbies, or any topic you want it to follow. Talking is the setup. You do not have to set up a system first.
Ask for the plan first, before any work runs. Say the task, then ask for the exact steps it will take, what it needs from you, and anything it cannot do. Wait for you to approve or correct the plan. Review the plan like a checklist and fix a wrong step or add a missing step before work starts.
Check that your agent understood you, before it runs. Ask it to show back what it thinks you mean and what output it will give you. Correct its repeat back right there when it does not match what you pictured.
Work in small single steps. Count the steps first. Give one step, check it, then give the next step. A ten step run is a huge run for an agent, so break it down and keep each step to exactly one thing.
Show it once, then save it by name. This is how you create a new task or a new skill. Take over the browser and do the task once yourself while your agent pauses. You drive alone and your agent does not watch your clicks. There is no record button to press. After you hand control back, tell your agent the steps in chat and tell it to save them by name, such as save this as Fun Things. Later, say pull up Fun Things and it picks up where you left off.
Correct it in small plain words when it does it wrong. Do not start over. Say what to change and say to remember that correction. That preference sticks and it gets better for you specifically over time.
Let it keep learning your interests every day. Your Feed looks like a newspaper with articles and topics related to what you told it you care about, updated daily. Your Ideas look like a lightbulb with suggestions for things you might like. It is not mind reading. It learns from what you actually talk about.
Use easy first and deep only when you want it. Never require a deep setup to use a basic task. Keep the wording in plain benefits and do not lead with virtual machine or VM. Say it has its own browser and workspace built in, you do not have to set anything up, it keeps your logins safe, and it saves and remembers your stuff.
Lane 1: plan an event, step by step
Ask which lane the user wants first: plan an event, or find local events. Do not run both at once unless the user asks for both.
Ask the event setup questions, in plain words, before any venue search. Ask what kind of event it is, such as a birthday, a baby shower, a wedding, a business opening, a fundraiser, or a family gathering. Ask for date and time, or a date range, guest count, age range, budget ceiling, area or town, indoor or outdoor, and what feeling the event should have. Ask what must be true for the event to count as a success, in the user's own words.
Build the workup step by step, in this order, with one approval per step. Step 1, lock the facts above. Step 2, choose the creative direction: theme, colours, invitations, decorations, music, food, and agenda, tied to the subject of the event, not to a generic template. Step 3, find venues that fit. Step 4, build the budget. Step 5, build the timeline and checklist. Step 6, build the guest and vendor lists. Step 7, deliver the plan.
Help with creatives at Step 2, not as an afterthought. Ask what the event is celebrating, who the guest of honour is, and what pictures, colours, or memories belong to them. Use that material for the theme, the invitations, and the decorations, and credit any found pictures. Do not invent guests, speakers, or honourees.
Find venues by searching places, not by guessing. Search with the area, the event type, the guest count, and the budget, and judge the results instead of following their rank. Set aside wrong category, wrong area, and closed places, unless the user asked about them. Name only places that came back from a tool, with their exact address for each branch.
Check each shortlisted venue on its own site or details before presenting it as a fit. Check capacity, price, hours, parking, accessibility, indoor or outdoor space, rain plan, noise rules, and whether it can be booked for the date. A high rating does not establish suitability, and opening hours do not establish that a venue can be booked.
Present two or three venues as the recommendation, each with one sentence on why it fits, plus its address, capacity, and price range when known. Offer more options, and offer to narrow it down, after the recommendation. Show a map when a place has coordinates, and keep addresses, ratings, and coordinates out of the text when the map carries them.
Build the budget as a delivered total, not as a list of guesses. Include venue, food, decorations, invitations, music, vendors, and any fees, with a line for what is still unknown. Show what is left against the budget ceiling, in plain words.
Build the timeline backwards from the event date, with who does what and by when. Include booking deadlines, invitation deadlines, vendor confirmations, and a day of checklist. Save the plan by name when the user wants to repeat it, such as save this as Birthday Plan.
Never book a venue, buy a ticket, or pay a vendor from this skill. Present the booking route, the contact, and the total, and the user books and pays themselves.
Lane 2: find local events in their area, for their interests
Ask for area, date or date range, and interests, before searching. Use interests the user already told your agent about, from their Feed and Ideas, as a starting point, and ask them to confirm or correct those interests. Do not assume an interest they never stated.
Search for events that fit that area, date, and interest, using event listings, local calendars, and place listings. Search again with a narrower type or a neighbouring area when the set is weak.
Verify date, time, location, price, and age suitability on the event's own page or listing before presenting it as confirmed. Events move, cancel, and sell out, so a listing found today is not a guarantee for tomorrow. State the date the event was checked.
Present a few events as a starting point, each with one sentence on why it fits the user's interests, plus date, time, place, and price when known. Order them by date, not by popularity, unless the user asks for popularity. Offer to narrow it down by type, price, or distance after the recommendation.
Offer next steps that fit the event: directions, ticket route, or adding it to a plan. The user buys tickets themselves, and your agent does not buy them.
Save a recurring lookup by name when the user wants it, such as save this as Weekend Events, with area, interests, and how often to check. Do not set a recurring check without the user saying so, and do not change its cadence without them saying so.
Diverse, not concrete: let the user prune
Do not make this skill concrete, narrow, or one size fits all. Present a diverse set of options first, across price, style, risk, format, and approach, so different people can see themselves in it.
Let the user prune. Ask what to cut, what to keep, and what to change, and then narrow to what they kept. Pruning is the user's job, not your agent's guess. Do not prune for them before they have seen the options.
Do not lock a single choice early. Offer at least two or three meaningfully different options at each decision point, with the trade for each, unless the user already locked that choice themselves.
Keep options that do not fit one person, because they may fit another person using the same skill. A skill that only works for one kind of person is too concrete to reuse.
When the user prunes, save the pruned version by name when they want to repeat it, so their version starts from what they kept, not from the full diverse set again.
Present the result
Lead with the plan or the event list in plain words, then the decisive details: date, place, guest count or interest fit, and total cost or price.
State what you could not verify. State when a venue's availability was not confirmed, a price was not listed, an event's date was not rechecked, or a vendor was not contacted.
Stop after a denial. Do not re-pitch a rejected venue, theme, or event in new words.
Available connectors
[Places Search](/opt/hatch/connectors/places/CONNECTOR.md) for place search results, rich details, photos, and identifying a place from a photo.
Use your agent's connector and skill search, if it has one, to find other connectors and related skills.
If nothing here fits, look on the web for a maintained API or MCP server and set it up with your agent's custom connector setup, if it has one, or build a custom connector.
Websites
Use the venue's own site for current hours, capacity, services, and booking options when the decision depends on them.
Use local event calendars, the event organiser's own page, and maps listings for event details, and verify the date, time, and location on the organiser's page before presenting an event as confirmed.