School

A syllabus is the contract for the whole class, and almost nobody opens it twice. Add each one on the agent's Knowledge tab and your agent reads it properly: what the grade is made of, what a late paper costs, whether attendance counts, when the exams are, and every dated thing on the schedule. That becomes one list you can ask, so "what's due Thursday" and "is the lab graded" have answers that come out of your own class rather than off the internet.

It keeps going all term. Paste your school's class calendar link once and it checks each week for anything your professors added or moved. Connect your school email and the announcements get read too, so a due date that changed on Tuesday is not a surprise on Friday. Tell it what you scored and it says where you stand: what you need on the final for an A, and which class is the one worth Sunday.

It holds the dates the school set as well as the ones your professors did: the last day to drop, the last day to withdraw, when registration opens, when finals start. Those are the expensive ones to miss.

When a term ends it closes the classes out and opens the next one, so what you took and what you got builds up year over year instead of being retyped every August. It reads, tracks and works it out. Turning the work in stays yours.

Setting up My Classes

1. Add each syllabus on the agent's Knowledge tab, one file per class. PDF, Word, text and web pages can all be read. Then say "read my syllabuses" in the chat.

Made by Otian AI.

The week goes wrong on Sunday, when nobody has looked. This looks. It pulls your class calendar link for anything your professors added or moved, reads the class mail that came in, updates what it holds, and then lays the week out day by day: what is due, what it is worth, and what is big enough that Wednesday is already too late to start. If a due date moved, it says so. A quiet week gets a short message, because a quiet week is worth knowing about too.

Works with

• My Classes skill

Made by Otian AI.

A deadline you remember on the day is a deadline you half meet. This watches the dates already on your coursework list and speaks four days out, which is far enough to still do the reading and close enough to be real. It says what it is, what class, what it is worth, and how long it usually takes. The morning after something was due, if it is still sitting there as not turned in, it says that once, because the fastest a late penalty gets smaller is the day you notice. The checking is done on this computer and costs nothing, so a week with nothing due is a week you hear nothing.

Works with

• My Classes skill

Made by Otian AI.

The dates that cost the most are not the ones your professors set. Missing the last day to drop can mean paying for a class you are failing and carrying the grade anyway. Missing the day registration opens can mean the class you need is full until next year. Nobody sends you a second reminder about either.

This watches the school dates your agent looked up when you said where you go, and speaks two weeks ahead of each one, with what it actually costs and what to do before then. It says it once more on the day. Outside those windows it is silent, and the watching is done on this computer, so silence costs nothing.

Works with

• My Classes skill

Made by Otian AI.

Picking classes is the decision a degree is actually made of, and it gets made in one panicked week twice a year, out of a requirements sheet nobody can read and a course schedule that is a wall of codes. What it costs to get wrong is a whole extra term.

Add your degree audit on the agent's Knowledge tab, once. Your agent turns it into a plain list of what you still owe: the major, the minor, the general education slots, the credits. It knows what you have already finished, because your finished classes are already on file.

Then ask it what to take. It looks up what your school is offering next term, matches that against what you still need, and comes back with a schedule: what to take, why each one is on there, what it clears off your list, where two classes sit on top of each other, and where you are missing a prerequisite you would need this term to get. It says what the heavy combination is before you find out in October.

It plans, and that is where it stops. It never signs you up, never touches your school account, and never tells you a seat is open, because it has no way to see one. You take the plan to registration yourself, which is where a decision this size belongs.

Setting up Class Planner

1. Add your degree audit on the agent's Knowledge tab. Most schools let you save or print it as a PDF from the student portal, and it is usually called a degree audit, an academic evaluation or a progress report.

Made by Otian AI.

A tutor that keeps your progress. Ask it to teach you something and it explains simply, then turns the key points into saved flashcards. Say "quiz me" and it tests you, showing the ones you struggle with more often (spaced repetition) and easing off the ones you've nailed. Because your cards and progress are saved, studying compounds instead of restarting every session.

Made by Otian AI.

The Learning Coach spaces your cards out so the shaky ones come back sooner. That schedule is worthless if you have to remember to open it, which is exactly the vigilance worth handing over. Each evening this checks which cards are actually due, starts the quiz with the first one, and moves each card up or down as you answer. On a day with nothing due it stays quiet, which is the honest answer most days once your cards are well learned.

Works with

• Learning Coach skill

Made by Otian AI.

Send a video link (YouTube, Vimeo, and most public/user-uploaded sites) or give the full path to a video or audio file on this computer, and Archie transcribes it and writes notes: a short overview, the key points, any step-by-step instructions, notable quotes with timestamps, and action items. Everything is transcribed locally on your computer, with no per-minute transcription bill, and the finished notes are filed under Knowledge, so you can ask follow-up questions ("what did they say about pricing?") days later. Long videos are processed in the background; Archie messages you when the notes are ready. A video sent as a chat attachment can't be read, so send the link or the full file path instead. DRM-protected sources (Netflix, Disney+, etc.) can't be downloaded and are reported as such.

Works with

• Video

Setting up Video Synthesizer

1. On install, Archie downloads the video tools it needs (about 215 MB, one time). You can keep using Archie while that happens.

Made by Otian AI.

Watching is not learning, and everybody knows it by the third lecture. Give this the videos, one link at a time or a whole list, and it transcribes each into timestamped notes filed under Knowledge, then pulls the real content out: the definitions, the claims, the things later lectures will assume you remember. Those become flashcards, and the Learning Coach's spaced repetition brings back the ones you keep missing. Ask it anything from the course afterwards and the answer comes with the lecture and timestamp attached, so you can go rewatch the ninety seconds that matter instead of the hour.

Works with

• Video

Made by Otian AI.

A reference library is a promise to your future self that you will be able to find the paper again. The promise breaks quietly: five hundred items in, the tags have drifted, half of them were saved from a browser button with whatever title the page had, and finding the one you half remember takes longer than searching the internet did.

Connect Zotero and your agent reads the real library. Ask what you have on a subject and it searches titles, creators and the full text of what is stored, and tells you what is there and where each one sits. Ask for the citation and it asks Zotero to format it, in the style you name, rather than assembling one itself and getting an initial wrong.

It reads what you have already collected. There is nothing to import and nothing to re-tag.

Works with

• Zotero

Setting up Zotero Keeper

1. Make the key at zotero.org/settings/keys/new, name it Archie, and leave "Allow write access" unchecked unless you want your agent to be able to add references.

Made by Otian AI.

Study Partner is for the hours when you are learning something hard: a class, an exam, a certification, a subject you dropped years ago and now need back. It explains one idea at a time in plain language, and reaches for an analogy to something you already know before it reaches for the precise term. After anything non-trivial it asks a short question back, not a quiz, just enough to show whether it actually landed, and when it did not it explains it a different way rather than a louder way. Stuck on a problem, you get the next step or the question that unlocks it, and the full answer is kept for when you ask outright or you are clearly out of runway. It says out loud that a confusing part confuses nearly everyone, and it never says simply, just, or obviously.

Study Partner in a conversation

Made by Otian AI.