Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques for sidelink communications in an unlicensed spectrum. A method that may be performed by a user equipment (UE) and a base station (BS) includes sensing, prior to a start of a time window, a frequency band to determine whether the frequency band is idle, the time window divided in time into a plurality of time periods, the frequency band divided in time across multiple of the plurality of time periods into a corresponding plurality of resources comprising one or more unassigned resources and one or more assigned resources assigned to one or more other wireless communication devices for wireless communication.