Dashboard Reference | AI for Real Life

The page that lives next to your dashboard.

You built your Student Dashboard in Lesson 10.2. This is the always-open reference page that lives next to it. Four things live here: the Blueprint template (so you can re-paste it if you lose your Doc), the master update-prompt library (one copy-paste prompt per block, so you don't have to remember which lesson the original lives in), five common dashboard problems with fixes, and a small bank of scheduled-task prompts specifically for the dashboard.

None of this is required reading. Open the section you need; close the page when you're done.

If your dashboard is broken, start with the troubleshooting page.

This page is for extending a working dashboard — adding blocks, swapping prompts, refining style. If something is actively broken (sidebar won't open, Cowork won't fire, blocks show stale data), the Capstone Troubleshooting bonus is your first stop, not this one.

The Dashboard Blueprint — re-paste template.

If your Blueprint Doc got deleted, lost, or you never finished filling it out cleanly, paste the template below into a new Google Doc, fill the brackets, save it back to your "AI for Real Life — Student Hustle" Drive folder, and re-upload to your Student Dashboard Cowork Project's Context panel. That's the full repair.

Dashboard Blueprint — fill the brackets, save as a Google Doc

STUDENT DASHBOARD BLUEPRINT Name: [the name to use in the greeting — the one your friends actually use] School / Year: [e.g., HS senior / college junior at State / etc.] Countdown: [graduation / end of semester / next big deadline / none] Morning rhythm: [when you usually open it, what you want to see first] Visual feel: [clean and minimal / warm / sharp and high-contrast / soft and calm] Colors: [accent color + background tint, or "default" for course palette] Density: [a lot / medium / minimal] Tone: [direct and short / warm and personal / dry and a little funny / minimal] Excluded: [anything you don't want auto-surfaced — examples: GPA, money totals, specific class deadlines, application content] Notes: — This Blueprint guides every dashboard update. Update it whenever your style preferences change (usually once a term). — The Excluded section is a hard stop. Anything listed here must never appear on the dashboard, even by accident. Update it as you discover new things you want to keep off the page.

The master update-prompt library.

One copy-paste prompt per block. Open a new chat in your Student Dashboard Cowork Project, paste the relevant prompt, fill the brackets, send. The artifact updates in 30 seconds. These don't replace 10.2's skeleton build — they're surgical block-by-block edits for after the fact.

Greeting Strip — change the greeting or countdown

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On the Greeting Strip, change [the greeting / the countdown] to [your new value]. Keep everything else the same.

Today View — adjust the event count or add a "next 3 days" peek

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On the Today View block, [show only the next 3 events / extend to show today + tomorrow's events / add a small "next 3 days" peek beneath today]. Pull from my linked Google Calendar. Keep everything else on the dashboard the same.

The Runway — adjust how many academic items are surfaced

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On The Runway block, change the number of items shown from 3 to [N]. Pull from the upcoming-runway artifact in my Coach. Keep the urgency-color logic and labels the same.

Application Deadlines — show or hide based on season

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On the Application Deadlines block, [hide the block entirely — I'm not in app season / show it again — app season is starting]. If hiding, also hide its container so it doesn't take up dead space.

Top 3 Priorities — wire to a different source

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On the Top 3 Priorities block, change the source from the Coach's current-week-priorities artifact to [the Personal Cowork Project's current-week-priorities artifact / a manual list I'll paste each Sunday]. Keep the visual style.

Quick Prompts — swap the four buttons

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. In the Quick Prompts block, swap the four buttons for these instead: [list four prompts you actually run a lot — naming them in your own shorthand]. Each button should open a new chat in [the Coach / the Personal Cowork Project] with the named prompt pre-filled. Keep the button style consistent with the rest of the dashboard.

Brain Dump — point at a different prompt

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On the Brain Dump button, change the pre-loaded prompt from the M8.5 brain-dump-to-triage prompt to [paste your preferred prompt here]. Keep the button visual the same.

Coach Shortcut — re-link if the Coach was renamed

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On the Coach Shortcut block, the Coach Project name has changed from [old name] to [new name]. Update the link, the displayed name, and the last-updated timestamp. Re-confirm the Project is in this Dashboard's linked references.

Add a brand-new block (not on the original 10.2 list)

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. Add a new block called [name]. Place it [between which two existing blocks]. The block should [show what / pull from where]. Use the same card visual as the rest of the dashboard, including the placeholder treatment if the source isn't ready yet. Important: this is a new block, not on the standard course list. Confirm you're adding a custom block (not silently swapping it for one of the standard ones) and that it follows the Honest Work Code — no draft text, no graded work, deadlines and statuses only.

Five common dashboard problems.

Things that go wrong specifically with the dashboard artifact (separate from Capstone Troubleshooting, which covers tasks / Coach / scheduled-task issues). Each fix takes under five minutes.

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1. Blocks show stale data even after refresh.

Almost always a connector issue. Open Settings → Connectors. Check Google Calendar and Gmail — both should show "connected" with a recent re-auth date. If either shows "expired" or "needs reconnect," click reconnect, re-authorize, then run the full-refresh trigger from 10.2. If the connectors look fine, the issue is the linked Project — open your Coach and check whether the upcoming-runway / current-week-priorities artifacts have actually been saved (Sunday Reset and Pre-Exam Watch save them; if those tasks haven't fired in 14+ days, the dashboard reads stale data correctly).

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2. Blocks I asked to remove keep coming back.

Custom instructions issue. The Project's custom instructions still describe the old block list, so on the next major refresh Claude rebuilds it. Open the Student Dashboard Project's Custom Instructions panel. Find any reference to the block you want gone. Delete that line. Save. Re-run the full refresh trigger. The block stays gone.

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3. The dashboard looks broken on mobile.

The skeleton build prompt asked for mobile-responsive, but iteration prompts can break that if they specify fixed widths. Open a new chat in the Dashboard Project: "Update my Student Dashboard artifact. The current version doesn't render correctly on mobile (cards overlap / text is too small / horizontal scroll appears). Re-fix the responsive behavior — single-column at narrow widths, no horizontal scroll, minimum 16px body text. Don't change any block content."

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4. The colors / fonts drifted away from my Blueprint.

Common after a few iteration prompts. Each "update this block" can quietly re-style its block in slightly different colors. Open a new chat: "Update my Student Dashboard artifact. Re-read my Blueprint from this Project's Context. Apply the Blueprint's colors and visual feel to every block uniformly. Don't change any block content — just re-style." If the drift is bad enough, you can also delete the artifact entirely and re-run the 10.2 skeleton build prompt — the Blueprint and the linked Projects are still there, so the rebuild is fast.

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5. A block is showing data my Blueprint said to exclude.

This is the most important one to catch. Your Blueprint's Excluded section is the hard-stop list. If something on the page (GPA, a specific class's deadlines, money totals, application essay text) shows up despite being on Excluded, that's a guardrail failure. Action: open a new chat. "My Student Dashboard is showing [the thing] in [block name]. My Blueprint's Excluded list says this should never appear. Remove it now from this artifact, and update the custom instructions so this category never auto-surfaces again." Then verify the Excluded line is in the custom instructions, not just the Blueprint. (Both belt and suspenders.)

Dashboard scheduled-task prompt bank.

Three short scheduled-task prompts that read or refresh the dashboard. Drop them into a new scheduled task following the M9 wiring pattern (the prompts go in the task body; the schedule and the linked Project go in the task settings panel). All three point at the Student Dashboard Cowork Project.

Sunday-night dashboard refresh — runs Sun 6:30pm

Cowork: do a full refresh on my Student Dashboard artifact. Pull from all linked Projects using the cross-project awareness rule. Update every block that's changed since the last refresh; leave unchanged blocks alone. Confirm at the end with the "Refreshed from:" list and a one-line note on what's different from last week. Don't add new blocks I didn't ask for.

Weekday morning summary — runs Mon–Fri 7:00am

Read my Student Dashboard artifact (don't modify it). In 4 bullets, summarize what's different from yesterday's state: any new urgent emails surfaced in the inbox glance, any new calendar events added, any deadlines that moved closer to "now" status on The Runway, any application deadlines that crossed the 7-day mark. Send the 4 bullets as a notification or a chat message. Keep it under 300 characters total.

End-of-term dashboard archive — runs once, manually, on the last day of the term

Take a full snapshot of my Student Dashboard artifact in its current state — all live data, all priorities, all deadlines, the runway, everything visible. Save the snapshot as a Google Doc titled "Dashboard snapshot — [term name] [year]" in my "AI for Real Life — Student Hustle" Drive folder. Then prepare the dashboard for next term: clear all course-specific blocks, reset The Runway and Top 3 Priorities to placeholders, leave the Greeting / Today / Brain Dump / Coach Shortcut blocks live. Confirm both actions.

The morning summary is opt-in.

Some students love the 4-bullet morning text. Others find it noise — they'd rather just open the dashboard. If you turn this one on and ignore it three weeks in a row, follow the M9.1 rule and pause it. The dashboard is the source of truth; the summary is a convenience.

Quick-find reference.

The five things you'll Google at some point. Bookmarked here so you don't have to.

The five quick-finds

How do I open the dashboard? Claude desktop app → Cowork on → Artifacts tab in the right sidebar → click "Student Dashboard."
How do I refresh it without waiting for Sunday? Open a chat in the Student Dashboard Project. Paste the full-refresh trigger from 10.2 (or screen 5 above). 30 seconds.
How do I print it? The Print button is in the top-right corner of the dashboard itself (built into the artifact in 10.2's skeleton prompt). Opens the browser's print dialog with print-optimized CSS.
How do I share it on the fridge / a corkboard? Print it. Or screenshot it. The dashboard isn't a public URL — there's nothing to share via link. (If you want a shareable URL version, that's beyond this course; you'd be deploying the HTML to a hosting service yourself.)
How do I delete it and start over? Right-click the Student Dashboard artifact in the Artifacts tab → Delete. Then re-run the 10.2 skeleton build prompt. Your Blueprint, custom instructions, and linked Projects survive — just the artifact gets rebuilt.

Honest Work Code — applied to dashboard maintenance.

The dashboard surfaces work; it never produces it. Every prompt on this page either reads, refreshes, restyles, or removes — none of them ever ask Claude to write essay text, application content, recommendation letters, or graded submissions into a block. If a prompt you find online or improvise yourself starts trending in that direction, it's the wrong prompt. The dashboard layer holds the line; your writing happens at the desk, in the Coach, with the Voice Profile and the Edit-Don't-Write workflow.

Back to the curriculum

Bookmark this page. Come back when you're tweaking, swapping, or scheduling something. The dashboard build itself lives in Lesson 10.2; this page is the always-open companion.

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