Cronofy API by Cronofy

# Fix list: Cronofy API

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cronofy, the October 2026 research run, assessed 1 October 2026. Grade B, 64.4 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Cronofy API: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Payments & pricing, 30 out of 100, up to 8.8 more on the total

Why it scored 30: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices and per-account overage ($1.39 and $0.69 an account a month) published without login (20). A free developer account exists, but the pricing page doesn't say whether a card is needed (10). Browser signup, and production needs a paid plan (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 2. Security & auth, 60 out of 100, up to 7 more on the total

Why it scored 60: Per-user OAuth with fine scopes, including `free_busy` alone, `read_only`, and `delete_event` separate from `create_event`. Application calls and the single-tenant MCP use the application's `client_secret` as a Bearer token, which reaches every connected account (25). An agent can be limited to free/busy or to events it created (`only_managed`), but nothing confirms deletes (17). Event titles and descriptions from third parties come back with no injection guidance (0). No operator audit log found (0). ISO 27001, 27018 and 27701, SOC 2 Type 2 and a public bug bounty policy. No security.txt, per the 30 September check (18).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 3. Schema & documentation, 58 out of 100, up to 6.8 more on the total

Why it scored 58: No OpenAPI or other machine-readable contract found (0). llms.txt with about 35 to 40 links and Markdown copies of pages (10). Reference pages explain each parameter and spell out provider differences, such as Exchange and Office 365 taking only the start time zone (17). Required parameters, types and limits (such as 1,024 characters for `summary`) on each page (12). Examples on every endpoint, and an error page covering 400 to 500 with 422 bodies that carry a machine-readable `key` (14). `/v1` in the path, but the changelog has no dates and its recent entries are years old (5).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 4. Agent ergonomics, 76 out of 100, up to 3.9 more on the total

Why it scored 76: API responses can be narrowed, for example Availability's `response_format` of slots and the `only_managed` flag on events (15). Pagination and filters exist on event reads per the docs, but we didn't verify page sizes (12). Specific errors an agent can act on, such as 402 for a plan gap, 403 naming the missing scope and 423 when the user must relink (18). Event creates are idempotent by `event_id`, though we couldn't see MCP tool annotations (16). Official SDKs in Node, Python, Ruby, C# and more (15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 5. Maintenance & community, 56 out of 100, up to 3.9 more on the total

Why it scored 56: pycronofy 2.1.1 on 25 September 2026 (30). Only that one SDK release in the last 90 days, and the changelog is undated, so partial credit (5). No dated public changelog. Support through the docs and support pages (5). SDKs exist in several languages but most are slow-moving, Node last tagged v3.8.4 on 15 September 2025 and Ruby last tagged in 2023 (8). CI on the Node and Python SDKs, with Python 3.14 added on 25 September 2026 (8).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 6. Reliability, 85 out of 100, up to 3 more on the total

Why it scored 85: Atlassian Statuspage at status.cronofy.com with the API, Scheduler, Meeting Agents and each calendar provider as components (20). The RSS history shows one incident since 3 July, Event Triggers not sending in the US data centre on 7 July 2026, with no duration we could read. The last API error incident was 16 June (20). 50 requests a second and 500 in any 60 seconds by default (15). 429 documented with advice to pause, but no Retry-After or backoff figures. Event writes are upserts keyed on your `event_id`, so a repeat updates rather than duplicates (10). 99.99% uptime guarantee on Emerging and Growth, and an API SLA policy page (10). The API is GA. The MCP server is early access (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 74 out of 100, up to 2.3 more on the total

Made of editorial 58, provenance 90.

Why it scored 74: Closed service with terms naming Cronofy Limited (company 07878590) under English law, and MIT-licensed SDKs (15). The data management policy gives numbers. Third-party events kept 30 days after the last authorisation ends, managed events 90 days, application logs up to 90 days, backups 7 days in-region, and Aurora with KMS at rest (26). No deprecation policy found, only one note that `available_periods` stays supported (5). Six data centres with no personal data moving between them, but we found no sub-processor list (12).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- Duration of the 7 July 2026 Event Triggers incident, and whether anything was posted after it (the feed's channel date is 2 September 2026)
- Whether the free developer account needs a card
- The MCP server's tool list and annotations
- unchecked: a sub-processor list

## Weaknesses

- Production pricing starts at $819 a month billed yearly
- No OpenAPI spec or security.txt
- The changelog has no dates and its latest entries are years old
- MCP server is early access with no published tool list, and single-tenant mode takes the application secret
- 429 guidance says only to pause, with no Retry-After

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Call the data centre host the account was created in (api-uk, api-de and so on), since data never crosses regions
- Reuse the same `event_id` when retrying an event write, since Cronofy upserts on it
- Ask for `response_format` slots when you want bookable times rather than free periods
- On 423, ask the user to relink, since Cronofy has already emailed them
- Keep under 50 requests a second and 500 a minute, and pause on 429

## What the review panel asked for

- Retry-After on 429
- Published MCP tool list
- per-user MCP tokens
- publish MCP tool list

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.