AutoRemind

Automated reminders for students, powered by a single source of truth.

AutoRemind is a modular notification system that sends personalized assignment reminders via Email, Discord, and SMS. It integrates with GradeSync (Google Sheets) for class-wide deadline tracking and bCourses (Canvas LMS) for per-student assignment sync.

Features

• Multi-channel reminders — Email, SMS (Twilio), and Discord DMs
• bCourses integration — Students connect their bCourses account via OAuth; upcoming assignments are synced automatically
• GradeSync integration — Shared class deadlines ingested from Google Sheets
• Student dashboard — Configure reminder channels, preferred name, and how many days before a deadline to be notified
• Admin dashboard — View all students, deadlines, resources, and message delivery logs; manage assignment resources via a CRUD interface
• Daily pipeline — Cloud Run Job syncs bCourses data and sends reminders on a schedule

Quick Start

1. Install dependencies

pip install -r services/requirements.txt
npm install

2. Configure environment

cp .env.example .env.local
# Fill in your credentials (see env var reference below)

3. Run locally

npm run dev        # Web server at http://localhost:3000

4. Run the reminder pipeline manually

python3 services/gradesync_input/main.py

This runs three steps in order:

1. Canvas sync — refreshes bCourses assignments for all connected students
2. Reminder generation — computes which students are within their notification window and drafts messages
3. Discord + Email delivery — sends the drafted messages

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Architecture

Node.js Web Server (src/)

Serves the student dashboard and REST API. All Firestore access goes through src/api/firestore.js.

Route	Method	Description
GET /api/config	GET	Firebase client credentials
GET /api/reminders/get	GET	Fetch student settings
POST /api/reminders/register	POST	Create student doc on first login
POST /api/reminders/settings	POST	Save reminder preferences
POST /api/reminders/unsubscribe	POST	Disable notification channels
GET /api/deadlines	GET	Student's GradeSync deadlines
GET /api/resources	GET	Resources for an assignment
GET /api/canvas/auth	GET	Start bCourses OAuth flow
GET /api/canvas/callback	GET	bCourses OAuth callback
POST /api/canvas/sync	POST	On-demand bCourses assignment sync
GET /api/canvas/deadlines	GET	Student's synced bCourses assignments
POST /api/canvas/disconnect	POST	Remove bCourses connection
GET /api/admin/students	GET	All registered students (admin only)
GET /api/admin/deadlines	GET	All deadlines (admin only)
GET /api/admin/resources	GET/POST/PUT/DELETE	Assignment resources CRUD (admin only)
GET /api/admin/delivery-logs	GET	Message delivery history (admin only)

Python Daily Pipeline (services/)

Orchestrated by services/gradesync_input/main.py:

1. Canvas sync (services/canvas_sync/canvas_sync.py) — refreshes canvas_deadlines in Firestore for all connected users
2. Reminder generation (services/gradesync_input/db_fetch.py) — reads deadlines, canvas_deadlines, and students; outputs Discord and Gmail CSVs
3. Discord delivery (services/discord_service/send_discord_reminders.py)
4. Email delivery (services/email-service/main.py)

Firestore Collections

Collection	Key	Description
students	email	Student preferences and channel settings
deadlines	{course}__{assignment}	Shared GradeSync deadlines
assignment_resources	auto-id	Study resources linked to assignments
assignment_submissions	{assignment}__{student}	Submission status from GradeSync
canvas_tokens	email	bCourses OAuth tokens (server-side only)
canvas_deadlines	{email}__{assignment_id}	Per-student synced bCourses assignments
message_delivery_logs	auto-id	Record of every sent/failed reminder

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bCourses Integration

Students can connect their bCourses account from the dashboard settings page.

1. Student clicks Connect bCourses and completes the OAuth flow on bcourses.berkeley.edu
2. Access and refresh tokens are stored in canvas_tokens (never exposed to the frontend)
3. Upcoming assignments are synced into canvas_deadlines immediately, then refreshed each time the daily pipeline runs
4. Assignments show up on the Assignments page with a bCourses badge
5. The reminder pipeline sends notifications for bCourses assignments the same way it does for GradeSync deadlines

Setup: Create a developer key in the bCourses admin panel, set the redirect URI to https://your-domain/api/canvas/callback, and add CANVAS_CLIENT_ID, CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET, and CANVAS_REDIRECT_URI to .env.local.

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Admin Dashboard

Accessible at /admin.html. Requires a Google account whose email is listed in ADMIN_EMAILS.

• Overview — student count, deadline count, resource count, delivery success rate
• Students — all registered students with channel preferences
• Deadlines — all GradeSync deadlines
• Resources — add, edit, and delete assignment resources; assignment name and course code are populated from existing deadlines and resources
• Delivery Logs — full message history filterable by channel and status

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Environment Variables

See .env.example for a full template. Key variables:

Variable	Used by	Description
FIREBASE_PROJECT_ID	Node + Python	Firebase project ID
FIREBASE_API_KEY	Node	Client-side Firebase key
FIREBASE_AUTH_DOMAIN	Node	Firebase auth domain
FIREBASE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON	Node	JSON-encoded service account (for firebase-admin)
FIREBASE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_PATH	Python	Path to service account JSON file
DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN	Python	Discord bot token
DISCORD_GUILD_ID	Python	Discord server ID
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID	Python	Twilio account SID
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN	Python	Twilio auth token
TWILIO_MESSAGING_SERVICE_SID	Python	Twilio messaging service SID
CANVAS_CLIENT_ID	Node + Python	bCourses OAuth developer key ID
CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET	Node + Python	bCourses OAuth developer key secret
CANVAS_REDIRECT_URI	Node	OAuth callback URL
CANVAS_DEFAULT_DOMAIN	Node + Python	Canvas domain (default: bcourses.berkeley.edu)
ADMIN_EMAILS	Node	Comma-separated admin email allowlist

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Project Structure

public/          Frontend (HTML/CSS/JS)
  index.html     Student dashboard
  assignments.html  Assignment list with bCourses + GradeSync merge
  admin.html     Admin dashboard
src/
  server.js      HTTP server and routing
  api/
    canvas/      bCourses OAuth + sync handlers
    admin/       Admin API handlers
    reminders/   Student settings handlers
    deadlines/   GradeSync deadlines handler
services/
  gradesync_input/   GradeSync ingestion and reminder pipeline
  canvas_sync/       bCourses API client and sync
  email-service/     Gmail delivery
  discord_service/   Discord DM delivery
  text-service/      SMS delivery
  shared/            Shared config (settings.py, delivery_logger.py)

Deployment

See docs/deployment.md for full GCP Cloud Run deployment instructions.

bash deploy_job.sh           # Deploy the daily reminder job
bash deploy_job.sh --refresh-secrets  # Rotate secrets