A personal planner that runs on your own laptop. It pulls assignments from every course site into one to-do list and calendar, keeps your work shifts next to your schoolwork, lets you block out time to get things done, and can put meetings on your Google Calendar.
Nothing leaves your computer. You never type a password into this app: for sites that need a login you sign in yourself in a separate browser window, and only that browser's session is kept on your disk.
- Install Node.js LTS from https://nodejs.org (accept the defaults).
- Download or clone this folder somewhere permanent, e.g.
C:\Users\you\nick-manager. - Double-click
scripts\install-windows.cmd. It installs everything, builds the app, registers it to start when you log in, and opens it in your browser. - Bookmark http://127.0.0.1:3000
To stop it: scripts\stop-windows.cmd. To start it by hand: scripts\start.cmd.
When a new version is published, Today shows an "update available" banner and Settings gets an
Update now button. Clicking it opens a window that stops the app, downloads the latest version,
rebuilds, and starts it again. Your data is untouched. You can also run scripts\update-windows.cmd
directly. It uses git pull if the folder was cloned, otherwise it downloads the latest zip from GitHub.
Go to Sources and add, in this order:
| Source | What it gives you | Login? |
|---|---|---|
| ENGR 131 course site | Every assignment on the course schedule, with due dates. Added automatically. | No |
| Brightspace | Assignments, quizzes and dated content from all courses | Yes, once |
| Gradescope | Assignments, due dates, whether you submitted, scores | Yes, once |
| Calendar feed (.ics) | Your work shifts from Sling / Homebase / 7shifts | No |
ENGR 131 site: added for you on first launch, and the whole semester's schedule is imported
before you even open the app. Click Edit on it once to set the two days your section meets (for
example Mon,Wed) and the class start time. The schedule says things like "Due: Class 2A"; that
becomes the first meeting of week 2 at your class time.
Brightspace and Gradescope: click Connect. A browser window opens at the login page. Sign in like normal (Purdue SSO and Duo), wait until you see the site's home page, then come back and click Done, I'm logged in. Syncing starts right away. When the site eventually logs you out, the source shows "Needs login" and a banner appears on Today. Click Reconnect and do it again. Duo's "remember me for 30 days" makes this rare.
Work schedule: find the calendar-sync link in your scheduling app and paste it in.
- Sling: Settings → Calendar sync → copy the iCal URL
- Homebase: Schedule → Sync to calendar → copy the link
- 7shifts: My schedule → Sync calendar → copy the link
- When I Work: My schedule → Sync to calendar
Everything syncs every 30 minutes (change it in Settings), or hit Sync all.
This pushes your due dates, shifts and planned work blocks to a "Nick Manager" calendar in your Google account, pulls your Google events into the planner, and lets you create meetings that email invites to people. It needs a one-time setup because Google wants each app to have its own credentials:
- Go to https://console.cloud.google.com and create a project (any name).
- APIs & Services → Library → enable Google Calendar API.
- APIs & Services → OAuth consent screen → External → fill in the app name and your email → add yourself under Test users.
- APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → OAuth client ID → Application type Desktop app. Copy the client ID and client secret.
- In Nick Manager → Settings, paste both, Save, then Connect Google Calendar and approve.
- Today: overdue, due this week, today's shifts, events and planned blocks. Quick add.
- To-do: everything in one list, grouped by due date or course. Click a row to edit, tick to finish. Synced items link back to the site they came from.
- Calendar: month / week / day. Drag to move, click empty space to add a shift or event.
- Planner: drag a to-do onto the week to block time for it.
- Courses: one card per class with links to every site it uses. "Open all sites" opens them at once.
- Sources: connections, sync log, and course mapping for Brightspace / Gradescope.
Node + TypeScript monorepo (npm workspaces):
shared/ API types shared by server and web
server/ Fastify API, SQLite (Drizzle), sync engine, Playwright session, Google integration
web/ Vite + React front end
scripts/ Windows install / start / stop / update (plus Mac equivalents)
data/ created at runtime: nick.db, browser-profile/, google-tokens.json, server.log (gitignored)
npm install
npx playwright install chromium
npm run dev # server on :3000 with reload, web on :5173 proxying /api
npm test # vitest: connector parsers and reconcile logic
npm run build # web/dist + server/dist; `npm start` serves both on :3000
npm run db:generate # after editing server/src/db/schema.tsUpdates: server/src/update.ts compares the installed commit (.git or a VERSION file written by
zip installs) with the head of main on GitHub once an hour, and POST /api/update/run launches the
update script detached. Merging to main is what publishes an update, so keep main releasable.
Adding a connector: one file in server/src/connectors/ implementing Connector from types.ts,
registered in registry.ts. Return raw courses/assignments/shifts/events and sync/reconcile.ts does
the upserts, task mirroring, course auto-creation and cross-site dedupe. Sites that need a login get
needsBrowser: true, a loginUrl, and an isLoggedIn check; the sync runs inside ctx.withPage.
Known gaps:
- Brightspace and Gradescope connectors were written against their known API and page structure but
have not been run against a real Purdue account yet. First live run should be done together; failures
land in the source's sync log, and Gradescope saves the page it saw to
data/debug/when it finds nothing. - Courses are discovered from Brightspace and Gradescope on first sync. If a class uses a site with no connector, add it as "Link only" on the Courses page so it still shows up on that course's hub.