UniPilot

Quiet AI teammates for the parts of school you keep forgetting.

UniPilot is a college-student productivity platform built around a handful of focused AI agents. It pulls your real academic life in from Canvas, Ed Discussion, and Google Calendar, then puts a few calm, single-purpose agents on top:

• The Briefer — texts a short "here's your day" to your phone every morning (via Telegram).
• The Scheduler — turn plain English ("office hours Tuesday 3pm") into calendar events; you confirm before anything is written.
• The Messenger — drafts emails to professors when you're sick or slammed. It never sends without you.
• Syllabus Reader — drop in a syllabus (PDF/DOCX/text) and it extracts grading, key dates, and policies, then lets you chat about the class.

Plus supporting engines: a grade evaluator, an assignment planner, and a RAG course tutor that answers questions from your own uploaded materials.

Built for a hackathon. Everything degrades gracefully — the app runs and is usable even with no API keys configured (agents fall back to deterministic templates and local heuristics).

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Tech stack

Layer	Choice
Frontend	Vanilla JS (no framework, no build step), a tiny hash router, hand-written CSS. Served as static files from public/.
Backend	Node.js + Express (TypeScript, ESM), run with tsx in dev and compiled with tsc for prod.
Database	SQLite via Node's built-in node:sqlite (no native deps / no compile toolchain). Schema in server/src/db/schema.sql.
LLM	Anthropic Claude (@anthropic-ai/sdk) for brief wording, message interpretation, email/answer drafting, and syllabus extraction.
Integrations	Canvas LMS (REST + token), Google Calendar + Gmail (OAuth via googleapis), Ed Discussion, Telegram Bot API.
Parsing / utils	pdf-parse + mammoth (syllabus/doc text), rrule (recurring events), dayjs (time), zod (request validation), multer (uploads), nanoid (ids).
Security	Sensitive fields (tokens, grades) encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM (server/src/crypto.ts).

The frontend and backend are served from a single origin (Express serves public/ and falls back to the SPA shell), so there's no CORS/proxy setup needed in dev or prod.

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Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 22.5 — required, because the backend uses the built-in node:sqlite module. Check with node -v.
• npm (ships with Node).
• Optional API keys (see Configuration) — only needed to light up the LLM and live integrations.

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Quick start

# 1. Clone, then install root + server dependencies
npm run install:all

# 2. Set up environment (optional, but recommended)
cp .env.example .env
# open .env and fill in any keys you have (all optional — see below)

# 3. Run the dev server (tsx watch — restarts on changes)
npm run dev

Then open http://localhost:4000.

On first boot the server creates data.db, applies the schema, generates a local encryption key (.enc-key) if one isn't set, and — if Canvas credentials are present — imports your courses/assignments once.

Try it out without any keys

Just run npm run dev and open the app. You can browse Today, Classes, Deploy, and the agent pages with seeded/fallback data. To populate realistic data, run the seed script:

npm run seed

Trying the Syllabus Reader

1. Go to Deploy and click the Syllabus Reader card → its page opens.
2. Choose a file (PDF, DOCX, HTML, or .txt/.md) or expand "or paste the syllabus text."
3. Click Read syllabus — you'll get a structured summary (grading breakdown, key dates, policies, office hours, materials).
4. Use the chat box to ask anything about the class — answers are grounded strictly in that syllabus. (Chat requires ANTHROPIC_API_KEY; the summary works without it via a regex fallback.)

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Available scripts

Run from the repo root:

Command	What it does
npm run install:all	Install root + server/ dependencies.
npm run dev	Start the backend in watch mode (tsx watch) and serve the frontend at :4000.
npm run build	Type-check + compile the server to server/dist/ (copies the SQL schema).
npm run start	Run the compiled production build (node dist/index.js).
npm run seed	Seed the SQLite DB with sample courses/assignments/data.

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Configuration

Copy .env.example → .env. Every value is optional; missing keys just disable that capability.

Variable	Purpose
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	The "brain." Enables LLM brief wording, message interpretation, email/answer drafting, and syllabus extraction. Without it, agents use deterministic fallbacks.
ANTHROPIC_MODEL	Claude model name (default claude-opus-4-8).
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN	The Briefer's channel. Create a bot with @BotFather, paste the token, then message your bot once to link it.
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID / GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET	Google OAuth for the Scheduler (write to Google Calendar) and Gmail drafts. Enable the Calendar API, create a Web OAuth client, set redirect URI to http://localhost:4000/api/auth/google/callback, then click Connect in the app.
GOOGLE_REDIRECT_URI	Override the OAuth callback (defaults to the localhost URI above).
CANVAS_BASE_URL / CANVAS_TOKEN	Server-wide Canvas LMS access (alternatively, connect per-user in-app on the You page).
ED_API_TOKEN	Ed Discussion announcements/threads.
PORT	Backend port (default 4000).
ENCRYPTION_KEY	32-byte hex key for encrypting tokens/grades at rest. Generate: node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))". If unset, a key is generated and persisted to .enc-key on first run.
DB_PATH	Override the SQLite file location (default server/../data.db).
RMP_ENABLED / REDDIT_TOKEN	Best-effort enrichment sources (RateMyProfessors / Reddit), off by default.

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Project structure

ai-hackathon-2026/
├── public/                 # Vanilla JS frontend (no build step)
│   ├── index.html          # App shell
│   ├── app.js              # Hash router + all views
│   ├── api.js              # Backend client + bootstrap/data mapping
│   ├── data.js             # Agent config + live state containers
│   ├── styles.css          # Hand-written styles
│   └── logo.svg / favicon.svg
├── server/
│   └── src/
│       ├── index.ts        # Express app, static serving, boot tasks
│       ├── http/           # API routes (routes.ts) + request context
│       ├── agents/         # brief, calendar, email, faq, grade, planner, syllabus
│       ├── integrations/   # canvas, google, ed, telegram, RateMyProf/Reddit
│       ├── db/             # SQLite adapter, repo layer, schema.sql, seed
│       ├── llm/            # Anthropic client wrapper
│       ├── domain/         # time/date helpers
│       ├── crypto.ts       # AES-256-GCM field encryption
│       ├── scheduler.ts    # daily-brief scheduler
│       └── telegram-router.ts
├── .env.example            # Copy to .env
└── package.json            # Root scripts (proxy to server/)

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Architecture

flowchart TB
    subgraph Browser["Browser — Vanilla JS SPA (public/)"]
        UI["index.html · app.js (hash router + views)"]
        APIJS["api.js — fetch client + bootstrap"]
        UI --> APIJS
    end

    subgraph Server["Node.js + Express (server/) — single origin :4000"]
        STATIC["Static serving + SPA fallback"]
        ROUTES["http/routes.ts — /api/* (zod-validated)"]

        subgraph Agents["Agents (engines)"]
            BRIEF["Briefer"]
            CAL["Scheduler / calendar"]
            EMAIL["Messenger / email (draft-only)"]
            SYL["Syllabus Reader"]
            FAQ["RAG tutor / faq"]
            GRADE["Grade eval"]
            PLAN["Planner"]
        end

        subgraph Bg["Background"]
            SCHED["scheduler.ts — daily brief"]
            TG["telegram-router.ts"]
        end

        CRYPTO["crypto.ts — AES-256-GCM at rest"]
        REPO["db/repo.ts"]
        DB[("SQLite — data.db<br/>node:sqlite")]

        ROUTES --> Agents
        SCHED --> BRIEF
        TG --> BRIEF
        TG --> EMAIL
        Agents --> REPO
        REPO --> CRYPTO --> DB
    end

    subgraph LLM["LLM"]
        CLAUDE["Anthropic Claude<br/>@anthropic-ai/sdk"]
    end

    subgraph Ext["External integrations (all optional)"]
        CANVAS["Canvas LMS"]
        GOOGLE["Google Calendar + Gmail"]
        ED["Ed Discussion"]
        TELEGRAM["Telegram Bot API"]
    end

    APIJS -- "HTTP /api/*" --> STATIC
    STATIC --> ROUTES
    Agents -. "wording / extraction<br/>(falls back to templates)" .-> CLAUDE
    CAL <--> GOOGLE
    EMAIL <--> GOOGLE
    ROUTES <--> CANVAS
    FAQ <--> ED
    TG <--> TELEGRAM

Request flow (e.g. add a calendar event):

sequenceDiagram
    participant U as User (Browser)
    participant S as Express /api
    participant A as Scheduler agent
    participant L as Claude
    participant G as Google Calendar
    U->>S: POST /agents/calendar/parse {text}
    S->>A: parseEvent(text)
    A->>L: interpret "office hours Tue 3pm"
    L-->>A: structured event (+conflicts)
    A-->>U: preview (no write yet)
    U->>S: POST /agents/calendar/commit {event}
    S->>G: create event (only write)
    G-->>U: confirmed

The preview → confirm → commit split means side-effecting actions (calendar writes, email send) never happen until you approve them.

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How it works

• Single user, local-first. Data lives in a local SQLite file (data.db). Sensitive fields are encrypted at rest.
• Preview → confirm → commit. Side-effecting actions (calendar writes, email "send", deletes) are split so the server never auto-sends email or posts externally. Email is draft-only unless you explicitly send.
• Graceful degradation. Each integration and the LLM are optional; the app detects what's configured and falls back to templates/heuristics otherwise.
• Background agents. On boot, the server starts the Telegram channel (brief push + commands) and the daily-brief scheduler.

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API surface (selected)

All routes are under /api. A few highlights:

• GET /api/health — liveness check.
• GET /api/me, GET /api/status, GET /api/courses, GET /api/events
• GET /api/agents/brief — the morning brief.
• POST /api/agents/calendar/parse → POST /api/agents/calendar/commit — natural-language → event (with conflict detection).
• POST /api/agents/email/draft → POST /api/agents/email/save-draft / send — draft-only email writer.
• POST /api/agents/syllabus/parse → POST /api/agents/syllabus/chat / commit — Syllabus Reader.
• POST /api/courses/:id/docs + POST /api/courses/:id/chat — upload materials and chat with the RAG tutor.
• POST /api/integrations/canvas/connect / import, GET /api/auth/google — integrations.

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Troubleshooting

• node:sqlite errors / module not found → you're on Node < 22.5. Upgrade Node.
• Agents give templated, generic output → no ANTHROPIC_API_KEY set. Add one to .env and restart.
• No courses show up → connect Canvas on the You page, or set CANVAS_BASE_URL/CANVAS_TOKEN, or run npm run seed.
• Frontend changes not appearing → assets are cache-busted via ?v=N in index.html; a normal reload should suffice (the server sends no-cache).