What can you ask
OpenMind?
Copy any prompt into Claude, Cursor, or ChatGPT once OpenMind is connected.
Each section explains what OpenMind computes for you, and what setup it needs.
⏰ Deadlines
OpenMind reads your bCourses planner, converts every due date into your own time zone, works out what each item is worth from your course's assignment-group weights, estimates how long it will take, and computes the last day you can start. Anything past due and unsubmitted is listed first, separately, so it can't get buried.
Setup: Works as soon as setup is done.
“What's due this week?”
Ranked by urgency, with weights and start-by dates
“What's due for NLP?”
One course at a time
“Am I missing anything?”
Past-due work that was never submitted
“What should I work on right now?”
The top of the ranked list, and why it's there
“Do I have anything due tomorrow?”
Calendar days in your zone, not 24-hour blocks
“Show me everything due in the next two weeks”
A wider window
“Is my Tuesday deadline actually Tuesday?”
An 11:59 PM deadline is not the next day
“What have I already submitted this week?”
Submission status straight from bCourses
“What's due that has no deadline set?”
Undated work, which the planner hides
📊 Grades
Your own scores, exactly as bCourses reports them, broken down by assignment group. Ungraded work is never counted as a zero, and a course with no posted score says so rather than showing a misleading number. OpenMind reads grades for yourself only — there is no code path to anyone else's.
Setup: Works as soon as setup is done.
“What are my grades?”
Every enabled course, with the letter grade bCourses shows
“Break down my grade in STAT 156”
Assignment groups, their weights, and recent graded work
“What's my worst grade right now?”
Where attention is most useful
“How much is problem set 3 worth?”
Computed from group weights, not guessed
“What's still ungraded in NLP?”
Submitted work waiting on a GSI
“Which assignments are worth the most this semester?”
Weight across all your courses
✍️ Assignments
The full assignment description and rubric from bCourses, plus the facts around it: your due date (so an extension shows up), what it's worth, how long it should take, and when to start. Ask for help and you get the task explained and a plan — not text written for you to submit.
Setup: Works as soon as setup is done. Better once the course is indexed.
“Explain problem set 3”
What it asks, what the rubric rewards, and a time plan
“Explain the midterm report using the week 3 slides”
The same, with cited excerpts from your materials
“What does the rubric actually want here?”
Criterion by criterion, with the points attached
“How should I structure this essay?”
An outline, from the rubric
“Did I already submit this?”
Submission state, attempts, and whether it was late
“When do I need to start the final project?”
A start-by date from the hour estimate
🧠 Tutoring
Ask a factual question and you get a direct answer. Ask to learn something and the mode changes: diagnose what you already know, teach one building block, check with a scenario question, and climb a hint ladder rather than handing over the answer. It teaches from your own course materials once the course is indexed, and quotes what your syllabus says about AI so it works inside your instructor's rules.
Setup: Run openmind index --course <id> so it can quote your slides and readings.
“Tutor me on confounding”
Socratic tutoring from your course's own materials
“I don't understand backpropagation”
Starts by finding where it actually breaks down
“/answer”
Ends the Socratic mode and gives the answer, no lecture
“Quiz me on this week's reading”
One question at a time, confidence before the reveal
“Explain this like I've never seen it before”
A concrete analogy, then a worked example
“Am I allowed to use AI for this course?”
Quotes what your syllabus says, rather than guessing
📖 Course materials
By default OpenMind can see the names of your files and modules. Index a course and it extracts the text of its PDFs, slide decks, pages, and syllabus into a private file on your machine — so it can search inside them and quote a specific page. Scanned PDFs and unsupported formats are reported as such, never silently skipped.
Setup: openmind index --course <id>. openmind clear deletes it.
“Where do the slides cover instrumental variables?”
Page-cited hits from inside your decks
“What did the professor say about the midterm format?”
Searches announcements and the syllabus
“Show me week 3's materials”
Everything in that module, in order
“Read me page 12 of the week 4 reading”
The document as text, with page markers
“What's the late policy?”
Quoted from the syllabus, with the citation
“Index my causal inference course”
Makes that course's materials searchable
🗓️ Planning your week
A study plan built from real deadlines rather than a guess: overdue work first, each item scheduled to start no later than its start-by date, in blocks you could actually sit through, with a buffer before anything heavy. OpenMind cannot write to your calendar — it produces a plan you follow, not a claim that it scheduled something.
Setup: Works as soon as setup is done.
“Plan my week”
A schedule from your real deadlines and hour estimates
“I only have 6 hours this weekend — what matters most?”
Triage by weight and urgency
“What should I do first today?”
One thing, with the reason
“I'm behind. Where do I start?”
Overdue work first, still-submittable first
“How many hours of work do I have this week?”
The total across everything open
🎓 Choosing courses
The whole Berkeley catalog — 11,000 undergraduate and graduate courses across 240 departments — plus the part that actually decides your semester: which of them have sections this term. Every result carries the date the snapshot was taken, and course advice always ends with the reminder to check requirements with your advisor.
Setup: No setup or bCourses token needed.
“What should I take next semester if I'm into NLP?”
Matches filtered to what's offered, with reasons
“Is STAT 156 offered this fall?”
Live sections, times, instructors, and seats
“What are the 4-unit graduate courses in the I School?”
Filter by level, units, and department
“Tell me about COMPSCI 189”
Full description, units, repeat rules, cross-listings
“What causal inference courses does Berkeley have?”
Keyword search across the whole catalog
“Who teaches INFO 259 this term?”
Straight from the public class schedule
“Is that course offered in the spring?”
Says plainly when the Registrar hasn't posted it yet