opening-hours-truth

---
name: opening-hours-truth
description: Finds every place your opening hours are published, separates the five different sets of hours a venue actually runs, checks them against the premises licence, builds the twelve-month exceptions calendar from the published bank holiday dates, and names the one person who updates the one master copy. Use when someone arrives after the kitchen has closed, when a review says you were shut, or before a bank holiday weekend.
---

# Stop turning people away who read your website and believed it

You give this every place your hours appear, your premises licence hours, and the dates you actually intend to close or change over the next year. You get back one master set of hours split into the five sets you really run, every published copy listed with what it currently says and how far it differs, a twelve-month exceptions calendar built from the real bank holiday dates, the sentences that are true and still misleading, and one named person with one weekly slot to keep it right. It does not change your hours, it does not tell you when to open, and it will not publish an hour your licence does not permit.

## What it does

1. **Find every place your hours are published, count them, and name one master.** The website header, the footer, the contact page, the booking widget, the Google listing, the Facebook page, the Instagram bio, the delivery platform, the printed sign on the door, the voicemail greeting, the automatic email reply, and any aggregator that scraped you three years ago. List each with the exact text it currently shows and the date you read it. Then pick one as the master, which for most venues is the website. Everything that follows edits the master and copies outward. A fact stored in nine places with a human expected to keep the copies matching is the actual defect, and the wrong Christmas hours are only the symptom.

2. **Split the one published set into the five sets you actually run.** Building open. Kitchen serving. Bar serving. Bookable online. Delivery or collection. Almost every venue publishes one set and operates four or five, which is why a family arrives at nine on a Sunday, sees a full bar and is told the kitchen shut at eight. Write each set out separately for each day of the week. If two sets are genuinely identical, say so on the page rather than leaving the reader to assume it. The sentence that prevents the argument at the pass is not "open until 11", it is "kitchen serves until 9, bar until 11".

3. **Check every published hour against the premises licence, because the licence is the ceiling and not the plan.** Home Office guidance is that businesses selling or supplying alcohol in England and Wales "must have a licence or other authorisation from a licensing authority - usually a local council", and the premises licence authorises specific licensable activities. Late night refreshment is one of them and catches more kitchens than owners expect: it is defined as "the sale of hot food or drink to the public to consume off or on the premises) between 11pm and 5am". A website advertising hot food until midnight is advertising a licensable activity, and if the licence does not carry it, the website is the evidence. Put the licensed hours next to the published hours and mark any that exceed them.

4. **Build the exceptions calendar for the next twelve months from the published bank holiday dates, not from memory.** As published by GOV.UK and read on 16 September 2026, the remaining bank holidays in England and Wales for 2026 are Christmas Day on Friday 25 December and the Boxing Day substitute day on Monday 28 December. For 2027 they are New Year's Day on Friday 1 January, Good Friday on 26 March, Easter Monday on 29 March, the early May bank holiday on Monday 3 May, the spring bank holiday on Monday 31 May, the summer bank holiday on Monday 30 August, the Christmas Day substitute on Monday 27 December and the Boxing Day substitute on Tuesday 28 December. Scotland and Northern Ireland differ and must be read separately. Add your own closures, private hires and staff holidays to the same list.

5. **Write the last orders line, because that is the fact people actually need and almost nobody publishes.** Last food order, last drinks order, last table seated, last delivery accepted. These are not the same as closing time and they are the times a customer needs in order to decide whether to set off. A guest who reads "open until 10" and arrives at 9.40 to find last orders were at 9.15 has not been given wrong information exactly, and that is the problem. Put the four times on the page in the venue's own words and make them the sentence that sits next to the closing time, not a note underneath it.

6. **Test every published sentence for the version that is true and still misleading.** Section 226 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, in force since 6 April 2025, makes it a misleading action where a practice involves "the provision of false or misleading information relating to a product, a trader or any other matter relevant to a transactional decision", and it closes the obvious gap at subsection (2): "the reference to misleading information includes a reference to information which, although true, is presented in a misleading way." Subsection (3) goes further: "an overall presentation may be deceiving even if the information it contains is true." A page saying "open seven days" when the kitchen runs five is the everyday hospitality example.

7. **Test for the other failure, which is the hours being published where nobody will find them in time.** Section 227 of the same Act covers misleading omissions, defining material information as "information that the average consumer needs to take an informed transactional decision", and it treats badly placed information as omitted: references to omitting information include providing it "in a way that is unclear or untimely, or in such a way that the consumer is unlikely to see it". CAP Code rule 3.3 says the same for advertising. So hours reachable only by opening a menu, only inside a picture, only in a downloadable PDF, only on a third party listing, or only after scrolling past four screens on a phone, are hours you have not really published.

8. **Name one person, one weekly slot and one written change procedure, and let nothing else be edited.** The master gets changed, then the copies get updated from the master in a fixed order with a tick beside each. Weekly is enough for most venues, with a second pass in the week before every date on the exceptions calendar. Write down who does it, when, and in what order the copies are updated, and put the list where the next manager will find it. An hours file that depends on somebody remembering is the same fault as before with a document attached, and the test of whether this step worked is whether the person who does it next month has to ask anyone anything.

9. **Date the whole thing, set a review date, and record what was changed where.** Every published copy gets a row: where it is, what it said, what it says now, who changed it, on what date. The file carries the date it was built and the date each source was read, because licensing hours change, bank holiday substitute days move, and a hours document trusted for a year after it stopped being true is worse than no document, since nobody checks the thing they believe is maintained. Put the next review date on the front page in the same size as the hours themselves.

## Then it checks

1. Every place the hours are published is listed with the exact current text and the date it was read, and one of them is marked as the master, with no list ending in the words "and anywhere else".
2. All five sets of hours are written out day by day, and where two sets are the same, that is stated rather than left to be assumed.
3. Every published hour is compared against the premises licence hours, and any that exceed the licence, or that involve hot food between 11pm and 5am, is flagged by name.
4. The exceptions calendar covers the next twelve months, every bank holiday date in it is taken from the published GOV.UK list with the nation named, and each date carries a decision rather than a blank.
5. The last food order, last drinks order, last table and last delivery times are all present and appear next to the closing time rather than below it.
6. Every published copy is marked as reachable or not reachable on a phone without opening a menu, without downloading anything, and without the text living inside a picture.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never publish an hour the venue has not confirmed it will actually trade. This skill records and compares the hours the owner supplies, and an hour written into a website because it looks better than the real one is the exact fault the skill exists to remove.
- Never publish an hour that exceeds the premises licence, and never treat this skill's licence comparison as a licensing decision. Where the published hours and the licensed hours disagree, the item goes to the licensing officer or the venue's solicitor with the licence number attached, and it stays on the list until they answer.
- Never carry a bank holiday date forward from last year's file. Substitute days move, the nations differ, and the whole point of step 4 is that the dates were read from the published list on a stated date.
- Never leave a third party listing on the list as updated without opening it and reading what it now says. A submitted change is not a published change, and aggregators reject, queue and silently ignore edits.
- Never state a figure for how many customers were turned away, how much a wrong closing time costs, or what proportion of visitors check hours first. No such figure exists for a single independent venue and an owner who plans around a borrowed one is planning around a fiction.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own trading intentions and their own premises licence before it is published, and for their licensing officer, local authority or solicitor to check anything where the published hours and the licensed hours differ. It gathers published rules and the hours the owner supplied. It is not legal advice, it is not a licensing decision, and it does not certify that any published hour is lawful.

## Built from
- Home Office, "Alcohol licensing", GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/alcohol-licensing, published 26 March 2013, last updated 8 August 2025, read 16 September 2026: the premises licence requirement and the definition of late night refreshment as the sale of hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am, in step 3.
- GOV.UK, "UK bank holidays", https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays, read 16 September 2026: the England and Wales bank holiday dates for the remainder of 2026 and for 2027 quoted in step 4, and the note that the nations differ.
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, section 226 "Misleading actions", https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13/section/226, in force 6 April 2025 by SI 2025/272, read 16 September 2026: the misleading action test and subsections (2) and (3) on true information presented misleadingly, which is the whole of step 6.
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, section 227 "Misleading omissions", https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2024/13/section/227, in force 6 April 2025 by SI 2025/272, read 16 September 2026: the definition of material information and the treatment of unclear, untimely or unseen information as omitted, in step 7.
- Committee of Advertising Practice, CAP Code (Edition 12), Section 3 "Misleading advertising", https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: rule 3.3 on omitting material information or providing it in a way the consumer is unlikely to see, supporting step 7.

# opening-hours-truth

## You are given
Every place this UK hospitality business publishes its opening hours, already compiled by Claude, with for each one: where it is, the exact text it currently shows, a screenshot or saved copy, the date it was read, and whether it is reachable on a phone without opening a menu, downloading a file or reading text inside a picture. Claude's nomination of one as the master. The five sets of hours the owner has confirmed, day by day, for building open, kitchen serving, bar serving, bookable online and delivery or collection, plus the four last order times. The premises licence number, issuing authority and permitted hours for each licensable activity, including late night refreshment where held. The owner's own closures, private hires and altered days for the next twelve months. The bank holiday dates for the relevant nation as read from GOV.UK, with the nation named and the date read recorded. The person who will maintain the hours, their weekly slot, and the order in which the copies are to be updated.

## Produce
Write into a `./opening-hours-truth-output/` folder:

1. `master-hours.csv` with these columns in this order: `day`, `hours_set`, `opens`, `closes`, `last_order`, `identical_to_set`, `confirmed_by_owner`. `day` is `Monday` through `Sunday`. `hours_set` is exactly one of `building open`, `kitchen serving`, `bar serving`, `bookable online`, `delivery or collection`. Thirty-five rows, one per day per set, with `closed` written in `opens` and `closes` where the set does not run that day. `confirmed_by_owner` is `yes` or `no`, and any `no` is listed in `gaps.md`.
2. `published-copies.csv` with columns: `copy_ref`, `location`, `is_master`, `text_verbatim`, `date_read`, `reachable_without_a_tap`, `text_inside_an_image`, `behind_a_download`, `differs_from_master`, `difference_described`, `owner_of_copy`. `copy_ref` is P001 upward. `location` is exactly one of `website header`, `website footer`, `contact page`, `booking widget`, `Google listing`, `Facebook`, `Instagram`, `delivery platform`, `aggregator listing`, `door sign`, `voicemail`, `auto-reply email`, `other`. Exactly one row has `is_master` of `yes`.
3. `licence-comparison.csv` with columns: `hours_set`, `day`, `published_closes`, `licensed_until`, `licensable_activity`, `exceeds_licence`, `involves_late_night_refreshment`, `licence_number`, `issuing_authority`. `licensable_activity` is exactly one of `sale of alcohol`, `late night refreshment`, `regulated entertainment`, `none`. `involves_late_night_refreshment` is `yes` where hot food or drink is published for sale to the public at any time between 23:00 and 05:00, and `no` otherwise.
4. `exceptions-calendar.csv` with columns: `date`, `day_of_week`, `nation`, `reason`, `source_of_date`, `date_source_read`, `decision`, `which_sets_affected`, `copies_to_update`, covering the next twelve months from the build date. `reason` is exactly one of `bank holiday`, `owner closure`, `private hire`, `altered hours`, `staff holiday`, `other`. Every `bank holiday` row carries `source_of_date` of `GOV.UK bank holidays` and a non-empty `date_source_read`. Any row with an empty `decision` goes to `gaps.md`.
5. `misleading-test.csv` with columns: `copy_ref`, `sentence_verbatim`, `is_literally_true`, `impression_created`, `fails_misleading_action_test`, `fails_misleading_omission_test`, `section_cited`, `verdict_supplied_by`. `section_cited` is exactly one of `DMCCA 2024 s.226`, `DMCCA 2024 s.227`, `CAP Code 3.3`, `none`. `verdict_supplied_by` is always the name of the person or skill that made the judgement, and is never Codex.
6. `update-procedure.md` - the named person, the weekly slot, and the ordered list of copies to be updated from the master, copied verbatim from the input, followed by a checklist with one tick box per copy and a blank date column. Written empty if no procedure was supplied.
7. `change-log.csv` with columns: `date`, `copy_ref`, `text_before_verbatim`, `text_after_verbatim`, `changed_by`, `confirmed_live`, `date_confirmed_live`. Appended to the existing log, never overwritten. `confirmed_live` is `yes` only where the copy has been reopened and read after the change.
8. `gaps.md` - a numbered list of: any set of hours not confirmed by the owner; any published copy differing from the master; any copy not reachable on a phone without a tap, a download or a picture; any published hour exceeding the licence; any hot food published between 23:00 and 05:00 with no late night refreshment permission recorded; any date on the exceptions calendar with no decision; any missing last order time; any copy changed but not confirmed live; and whether a maintenance person and weekly slot have been named.

## Rules
- Codex compares, records and logs. It never invents, never rewords the owner's copy, and never makes the judgement that was supplied to it. Which hours the venue will trade, which copy is the master, and whether a sentence creates a misleading impression are all decisions that arrive with the input.
- Never write a new set of hours, never fill a blank hour by inference from another day, and never round a last order time. An unsupplied hour stays blank and goes to `gaps.md`.
- Never take a bank holiday date from memory, from a previous file or from any source other than the supplied GOV.UK reading, and never apply an England and Wales date to a Scottish or Northern Irish venue. The nation is recorded in every row.
- Never record a published hour as lawful. `exceeds_licence` is `yes`, `no` or `cannot be determined from the licence supplied`, and anything other than `no` goes to `gaps.md` for the licensing officer.
- Never mark a copy `confirmed_live` without a fresh reading of that copy after the change, with its date. A submitted edit to a third party listing is not a published change.
- Never write a figure for customers turned away, revenue lost, or the proportion of visitors who check hours. No such figure exists for a single independent UK venue.
- Times are recorded in 24 hour format as HH:MM. A venue that trades past midnight has its closing time recorded against the day the trading session began, and that convention is stated at the top of `master-hours.csv` as a comment row.
- Every quoted string is copied exactly, including punctuation, capitalisation and any emoji, and a copy that publishes hours as a picture has its text transcribed into `text_verbatim` with `text_inside_an_image` set to `yes`.
- Use British English, GBP and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes in any file you write, and any supplied text containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own trading intentions and premises licence, and for their licensing officer or solicitor to check anything where the published and licensed hours differ. It compares supplied information and is not legal advice, a licensing decision or a certification that any published hour is lawful.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written and the row count of each CSV. The number of places the hours are published, which is the master, and how many differ from it with the difference described. The number of copies not reachable on a phone without a tap, a download or a picture. Every day and set where the published hours exceed the licence, and every case of hot food published between 23:00 and 05:00. The count of dates on the exceptions calendar, how many are bank holidays, the nation used and the date the bank holiday list was read. Any of the four last order times missing. The named maintenance person and weekly slot, or the fact that none was supplied. The number of change log rows added and how many are confirmed live. And the `gaps.md` item count.