Academic Tracker — Canvas iCal + GoodNotes

Canvas iCal feed (assignments, quizzes, events across all courses): !command curl -s "$CANVAS_ICAL_URL" 2>/dev/null | grep -c "BEGIN:VEVENT" | xargs -I{} echo "{} upcoming events in Canvas feed"

Recent GoodNotes exports: !command ls -lt ~/Documents/GoodNotes-Export/*.pdf 2>/dev/null | head -5 || echo "No PDFs found"

Canvas Commands

Canvas data comes from the iCal feed at $CANVAS_ICAL_URL. Parse the .ics format to extract events.

due — Upcoming assignments and events

Fetch the iCal feed and show events due in the next 7 days:

curl -s "$CANVAS_ICAL_URL" | python3 -c "
import sys, re
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone

data = sys.stdin.read()
now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
window = now + timedelta(days=7)
events = data.split('BEGIN:VEVENT')
for ev in events[1:]:
    summary = re.search(r'SUMMARY:(.*)', ev)
    dtstart = re.search(r'DTSTART[^:]*:(.*)', ev)
    desc = re.search(r'DESCRIPTION:(.*)', ev)
    if summary and dtstart:
        name = summary.group(1).strip()
        try:
            dt = datetime.strptime(dtstart.group(1).strip()[:15], '%Y%m%dT%H%M%S').replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc)
            if now <= dt <= window:
                print(f'  {dt.strftime(\"%a %b %d %I:%M %p\")} — {name}')
        except ValueError:
            pass
"

Sort by date. If nothing is due, say so. Note: not all teachers post assignments to Canvas, so this may not capture everything.

events — All upcoming events

Same as due but with a 30-day window. Includes lectures, office hours, and any calendar items professors have added.

courses — List courses in the feed

Parse the iCal feed for unique course names:

curl -s "$CANVAS_ICAL_URL" | grep -oP '(?<=\[)[^\]]+' | sort -u

Course names appear in brackets in event summaries (e.g., [CS 4310] Homework 3).

GoodNotes Commands

GoodNotes folders:

• Auto-backup: ~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-$GOOGLE_DRIVE_ACCOUNT/My Drive/GoodNotes/
• Manual exports: ~/Documents/GoodNotes-Export/

notes list — List exported PDFs

ls -ltR ~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-$GOOGLE_DRIVE_ACCOUNT/My\ Drive/GoodNotes\ 6/*.pdf ~/Documents/GoodNotes-Export/*.pdf 2>/dev/null | head -20

notes read <filename> — Read a PDF

Use the Read tool to read the PDF file. Claude can read PDFs natively.

Read ~/Documents/GoodNotes-Export/<filename>

notes search <query> — Search across notes

Search PDF filenames for the query term:

ls ~/Documents/GoodNotes-Export/ | grep -i "<query>"

study <topic> — Generate study material from ingested notes

The vault contains structured course notes at vault/shared/course-notes/. Each subdirectory is a course:

Steps:

1. Identify which course the topic belongs to (or search all if ambiguous)
2. Use Grep to search vault course notes for the topic:
   bashCopy

   grep -ril "<topic>" vault/shared/course-notes/
   

3. Read the most relevant note files (up to 5) — these are already structured markdown with concepts, definitions, and examples extracted from lecture notes
4. Check Canvas feed for related upcoming events/deadlines (exams, homework due)
5. Check vault/shared/course-notes/systems-programming/exam-schedule.md if the topic is CS 2600
6. Generate a study summary with:
   • Key concepts from the matched notes
   • Definitions and formulas
   • Practice questions (generate 3-5 based on the material)
   • Upcoming deadlines related to this topic
   • Cross-references to related notes the student should review

If no vault notes match, fall back to searching raw GoodNotes PDFs at ~/Library/CloudStorage/GoogleDrive-$GOOGLE_DRIVE_ACCOUNT/My Drive/GoodNotes 6/.

study <course> — Full course review

If the argument matches a course name (e.g., study numerical-methods), read ALL notes for that course and generate a comprehensive review covering all topics covered so far.

Notes

• Canvas data comes from the iCal feed — no API token needed, no expiration
• Not all assignments may appear (depends on whether teachers add them to Canvas)
• Other events (lectures, office hours, campus events) will show up too
• The assignment-reminder heartbeat checks for events due in the next 3 days every 12h
• The goodnotes-watch heartbeat detects new PDF exports every hour
• The notes-ingest heartbeat processes new GoodNotes PDFs every 4h into vault course notes
• The cs2600-watch heartbeat crawls the CS 2600 website weekly for updates