dining-concierge

Dining Concierge

Requires the Mora MCP server (claude mcp add mora -s user -- mora mcp serve). If the mora tools are not available, say so up front and proceed web-only — the result lacks personal grounding; never fabricate it.

Overview

Restaurant picking is two layers: live web (what's open, deals, transit) and personal context (who's coming, your shared history, the occasion). The web layer is commodity; the personal layer is what makes the rec right — and it lives in Mora. Query Mora BEFORE any web search. A cold web-only rec is the documented failure mode this skill exists to prevent.

The Flow

1. Anchor time/place. Get the current local time (date) — deal windows and "tonight" depend on it. Note the user's transit constraint if given.

2. Mora layer first (parallel search_memory calls):

   • Per person named: "<name>" → identity, solo + group threads, in-flight plans. Group chats carry occasions (birthdays, "dinner Tuesday 7pm") — read them.
   • Shared history: "<name> dinner restaurant reservation" → places they have actually been together.
   • Taste tier: "Resy OpenTable reservation confirmed" (adapt to local booking platforms) → the user's real venue history (price tier, cuisines).
   • Calendar: availability and next obligation around the proposed time.

3. Web layer second. Current deals/hours verified for TODAY, transit route, ride price, reservation availability. Apply regional gotchas (e.g. Massachusetts bans time-window alcohol discounts — only FOOD deals like $1 oysters exist there).

   • Egress boundary: web/map/ride queries carry only coarse public terms — city or neighborhood, cuisine, candidate venue names. Never put people's names, message text, phone numbers, or calendar event details into an external query. The personal layer informs which query to run, not its contents.

4. Synthesize 2–3 ranked picks. Each: why it fits (cite the retrieved evidence), logistics from the user's actual location/next obligation, reservation link, one fallback. End with an explicit "what Mora does NOT know" line (e.g. dietary needs never mentioned in threads → suggest asking).

   • If Mora reveals an existing reservation or in-flight plan overlapping the window, surface it as pick #1 — never compete with the user's own plan; re-rank everything else as before/after/fallback options around it.

5. Close the loop. After the user picks, offer write_memory: venue, who, occasion, verdict. Future recs get sharper.

Evidence Rules

• Attendance ≠ preference. Say "you've been there twice," never "you love it." Reservations prove presence, not satisfaction.
• Cite only retrieved memories. No evidence of someone's tastes → say so plainly. Never invent "X loves oysters."
• Occasion sets altitude. A birthday thread upgrades the venue tier; don't pitch a dive-bar happy hour for a celebration without flagging the mismatch.

Privacy

• Task-minimal retrieval. Pull only what the recommendation needs; summarize evidence rather than quoting whole private threads, and never include phone numbers in output.
• Output still contains real names and history — never paste it into public demos, posts, or screenshots.
• Vault-derived details never leave the machine: see the egress boundary in step 3.

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Web search first, Mora after (or never)	Mora layer is step 2, always before web
Recommending for "tonight" without checking the clock	Anchor current local time first
Trusting listed hours/deals	Verify for today; deals rotate
Inferring group "compatibility" scores	Show evidence per person; no invented scalars
Treating a named person as unknown	Search Mora; the vault usually knows them