GradePad

Know where you stand in every course, before the final.

Paste a syllabus, get a grade table. GradePad works out your weighted mark as you
type, keeps a running average across courses, and saves as you go.

Quick start · How it works · Architecture · Development

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Given the marks you have so far and the weights from your syllabus, GradePad answers the two questions that matter: what is my mark in this course right now, and what is that doing to my average. Guest work is stored in the browser and syncs to Firestore once you sign in.

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/chrisjacksonn/GradePad-Improved.git
cd GradePad-Improved
npm install
cp gradepad/jsScripts/firebase-config.example.js gradepad/jsScripts/firebase-config.js
npm run dev

The app opens at http://localhost:3003. The placeholder config is enough to use it as a guest; add a real Firebase web config for Google sign-in and cloud sync. Syllabus parsing needs netlify dev and a GROQ_API_KEY, and falls back to a local text parser without one.

How it works

Marks weight by what you have done so far. A course graded on one 30% midterm reads as your midterm score, not as 30% of a grade you have not earned yet. Each row also shows what that assignment cost you against a perfect mark.

The average follows course units. A 1.00-unit course moves it twice as far as a 0.50-unit one.

Syllabi become tables. An LLM pulls out the course code, assignments, dates and weights. Its output is written to inputs as values, never as markup, and a local parser takes over if the call fails.

Nothing is quietly lost. Guest grades move into your account the first time you sign in, and a failed write says so instead of showing a green tick anyway.

Architecture

Static pages, ES modules, no framework. Vite bundles the five HTML entry points.

Module	Responsibility
jsScripts/db.js	Storage. Firestore for signed-in users, localStorage for guests, behind one serialized read-modify-write queue
jsScripts/grading.js	Weighted marks, lost points, unit-weighted average. Pure, no DOM
jsScripts/ordering.js	Evaluation ordering and renumbering. Pure, no DOM
jsScripts/gradeCalc.js	Reads the table into grading.js and writes the result back
jsScripts/tableOps.js	Builds course tables and wires them to storage
jsScripts/modal.js	Syllabus dialog and parsing, AI and local
jsScripts/dragDrop.js	Row reordering, pointer events so it works on touch
jsScripts/siteHeader.js	Sign-in header shared by the content pages
jsScripts/utils.js	Collapse, undo toasts, save status
netlify/functions/groq.js	Syllabus parsing proxy. Same-origin only, model and size capped

Writes run through a single promise chain and rewrite the whole document, so concurrent edits in a tab cannot overwrite each other, and evaluations carry stable ids, so reordering or deleting a row never rewrites a different one.

Data model

One document per user, at users/{uid} in Firestore or under gradepad_data in localStorage.

{
  "semesters": [{
    "id": "m8x2k1", "name": "Fall 2026",
    "courses": [{
      "id": "c4n9p2", "code": "SYDE 101", "topic": "Statics", "units": 0.5,
      "evaluations": [
        { "id": "e7q3", "name": "Midterm", "due": "Mar 15",
          "grade": "82", "weight": "30", "index": 0 }
      ]
    }]
  }]
}

index is display order only. Identity is always id.

Development

Command	What it does
npm run dev	Vite dev server on port 3003
npm run build	Production build into dist/
npm run preview	Serve the built output
npm test	Unit tests, Node's built-in runner, no test dependencies

Tests cover grading.js and ordering.js. Anything touching the page still needs checking in a browser.

Firestore access is restricted to each user's own document. Those rules live in firestore.rules so they are reviewable next to the code, and ship with firebase deploy --only firestore:rules. Editing them in the console instead leaves that file stale.

Netlify builds from master, writing firebase-config.js from FIREBASE_API_KEY. The syllabus function reads GROQ_API_KEY.

License

MIT © Chris Jackson