10.2 — Build Your Dashboard Skeleton | AI for Real Life

This is the lesson where your Student Dashboard is born.

Nine modules in. You have a Coach Cowork Project, a tagged calendar, an Applications Cowork Project (if you've hit application season), a Sunday Reset that fires on Sunday at 6pm, and a notes app full of starred prompts. In 10.1 you picked the three pains the system should be built around. Today you take all of that and pull it onto a single page that lives in your Cowork sidebar — the live page promised on the homepage, the one Emma's sample preview shows, the thing you open every Monday morning.

One important framing before we build: the Student Dashboard is a Cowork Project, not the chat Project type your Coach lives in. The Coach is where you talk and study. The Dashboard is where Cowork does the assembling work. We'll link your Coach (and Applications, if it exists) to the Dashboard Project in a minute so Cowork can read what's in them.

First, the plain-English version of what a "live artifact" is.

You've heard the word "artifact" a few times in this course — Lesson 1.1 introduced Persistent Artifacts as a Pro feature: "when Claude builds you a tool or dashboard, it gets saved as a standalone page you can reopen any time, refreshed with live data from your connected apps." This is the lesson where you actually build one.

When Claude builds you an artifact, it's creating a single HTML page — a mini website — that lives inside Cowork. It isn't a file you download. It isn't a website anyone else can see. It's a page that opens in the Cowork sidebar when you click it, and closes when you don't need it. What makes it live is this: every time you open it, it can call your connected Google Calendar and Gmail and show you fresh data — today's events, this morning's unread emails, your next deadline — without you doing anything. You don't refresh it. You don't re-prompt it. You just open it.

What your dashboard is

A single HTML page that lives in Cowork
Pulls live from Google Calendar and Gmail
Persists — closes and opens, still there
Yours alone unless you choose to share it
Editable by asking Claude in chat

What it's not

Not a website anyone can find
Not hosted on the public internet
Not something you have to code
Not a separate subscription on top of Pro
Not a replacement for your calendar, email, or Coach — it reads from them

What today's lesson builds

A Dashboard Cowork Project (your next one, after the Coach — and after the Applications Project from M6.2 if you built that during apps season)
A one-time Blueprint doc that teaches Claude your style
The skeleton artifact — the page itself, with every block mapped in
Four blocks live on day one; the rest light up in 10.3–10.5

Why we build the empty skeleton first, then fill it in 10.3–10.5.

Most students reach M10 and assume the dashboard is the last thing you build — after the Coach is tuned, the tasks are wired, the prompts are saved. We're doing it the other way around. You build the skeleton today, and 10.3 / 10.4 / 10.5 each plug their work into a specific block on it. Reason: it's much easier to upgrade your Coach when you can see the empty Coach panel waiting for it on the dashboard. Each downstream lesson ends with "now this block lights up" — much more satisfying than wiring four pieces in the dark and assembling them at the end.

Before we build, find where artifacts live.

Open the Claude desktop app on your laptop. Cowork should already be on if you finished M9 — if not, click the Cowork toggle at the bottom of the message bar (the small sidebar icon). Now let's map the Cowork sidebar so you know where your dashboard will show up when it's built.

The main chat column is in the middle of the screen. That's where you talk to Claude. Nothing changes there.
The Cowork sidebar appears on the right whenever Claude is doing something visual — a task running, a file being edited, an artifact being built. It tucks itself away when not in use.
The Artifacts tab lives in that right sidebar. Look for a tab or icon labeled Artifacts (sometimes shown as a small page icon). Click it. You'll see a list of every artifact Claude has ever built for you — empty if this is your first one.
Click an artifact name to open it. It opens in the sidebar, full-width. Click again or close the sidebar to hide it. Your work isn't lost — artifacts persist until you delete them.
Rename an artifact by right-clicking it (or tapping the three dots next to it) and choosing Rename. Useful for telling two artifacts apart when you have a few.

Artifacts vs. canvas vs. chat — quick disambiguation.

You may see the word "canvas" in Claude's interface from time to time. Canvas is a different feature — a temporary scratch area for brainstorming. Artifacts are the persistent ones. When this course says "your dashboard is an artifact," it means the version that stays put across sessions, not the temporary canvas. Today's build uses artifacts specifically.

Can't see the Artifacts tab?

Two common causes. First: Cowork might not be active — look for the Cowork toggle in the message bar and click it on. Second: you may be using Claude.ai in your browser instead of the desktop app. Artifacts work in both, but the desktop app (which you installed back in Lesson 1.2) is where the live-update behavior is smoothest. If you're still stuck, the Setup Cheat Sheet tracks the current Cowork UI walkthrough as it shifts.

Create the Student Dashboard — a Cowork Project this time.

The dashboard itself is an artifact. But artifacts are made by asking Claude, and Claude gives you the best dashboard when it's asking inside a dedicated Project with custom instructions and your Blueprint uploaded. So before we build the artifact, we build the Project that will own it.

With Cowork on, look for the option to create a new Cowork Project — usually in the Cowork sidebar's Projects panel, or under a "+" / "New Project" button. UI labels shift over time; if it's not where these instructions describe, the Setup Cheat Sheet tracks the current path.
Name it: Student Dashboard. That exact name — no extra words, no cute emoji. Clean and searchable so it shows up first when you start typing.
Description: "My living command center for school. The Coach, my Applications work, my scheduled tasks, and my saved prompts all surface here. Claude maintains the artifact based on my Blueprint and the cross-Project awareness rule."
Link your Coach. Inside the new Cowork Project, find the references / linked content section (sometimes labeled Add reference, Linked Projects, or shown as a paperclip / link icon). Add your Coach Cowork Project as a linked reference now. If your Applications Cowork Project from M6.2 exists, link that too. (You'll come back here in 10.5 to link the Personal Cowork Project once it's built.) Linking is the step that lets the Dashboard read your Coach's syllabi, your Voice Profile, your AI Policy, and your Application Profile while building each block. Without it, blocks fall back to placeholders.
Scroll to Custom instructions and paste the template below.

Custom instructions — paste into your Student Dashboard Project

You are the maintainer of my personal Student Dashboard — a live HTML artifact that I open in the Cowork sidebar most mornings during the school year. HOW TO WORK IN THIS PROJECT: — The dashboard is an artifact you build and update. When I ask to add, remove, or change a block, update the existing artifact (don't create a new one every time). Preserve all other blocks unless I ask you to remove them. — My design preferences and academic context live in my Blueprint doc, uploaded to this Project. Read it before making style decisions. — The dashboard pulls live data from my connected Google Calendar and Gmail. When a block shows data, pull it fresh; don't show last week's data as if it were today's. — Keep the visual style consistent: clean, focused, not corporate, not overloaded. Rounded cards, readable sans-serif, generous whitespace, clear visual hierarchy. Match the colors and feel from my Blueprint. WHAT NOT TO DO: — Don't add new blocks I didn't ask for. — Don't rewrite my Blueprint without permission. If the Blueprint needs updating, ask me first. — Don't embed anything that requires a paid API key or external service. Everything should run from Cowork connectors or linked Project content. — Don't include medical, legal, or financial advice in any dashboard block. Show data, don't prescribe action on it. — Never write essays, application content, recommendation letters, or any graded work into a dashboard block. The dashboard surfaces deadlines and priorities; it does not produce submissions. This is the Honest Work Code applied to the dashboard layer. TONE: — When the dashboard surfaces text — a greeting, a gentle nudge — match the voice I described in my Blueprint. Direct, short, never saccharine, never corporate. When I ask for a new block, you'll get the exact block spec pasted in from the module lesson. Use that spec. Don't improvise layout. Ask me one clarifying question if the spec is ambiguous; otherwise build it.

You'll upload the Blueprint in the next screen.

For now the Project is created, the custom instructions are in, and the Context panel is empty. The Blueprint goes there next. Leave this tab open.

Build your Dashboard Blueprint — a one-time interview.

The Blueprint is the one document that teaches Claude your dashboard style — what blocks you care about, what tone you like, how much information you want shown at once, what the page should look like at 7am on a Monday. You'll fill it out once, in conversation with Claude, then save it to a Google Doc and upload it. After this, every future block change just references the Blueprint and extends it.

Same pattern as your Coach's "How I Actually Learn" interview from M7.2.

If you went through M7, you know this rhythm: Claude asks one question at a time, waits for your answer, moves on. This version is short — Claude pre-fills what it can from your Application Profile (M6.2) and How-I-Learn doc (M7.2), so you don't re-answer "what's your major" or "how do you learn best" for the third time.

Step 1 — upload your Application Profile and How-I-Learn doc to this Project's Context.

Both files already exist in your Coach (you built them in M6.2 and M7.2). Re-upload the same files to your Student Dashboard Cowork Project's Context panel now. The Blueprint interview reads from them and skips any questions it can answer from what you already wrote.

Upload your Application Profile (from M6.2) and How I Actually Learn doc (from M7.2) to the Student Dashboard Cowork Project's Context panel.
Open a new chat inside the Student Dashboard Project (so the custom instructions from the last screen are loaded).
Paste the interview prompt below.
Answer each question as it comes — there will be fewer than 9 because Claude pulls what it can from the uploaded files. Short answers are fine.
When done, Cowork builds the Blueprint as a Google Doc, saves it to a Drive folder, and re-uploads a copy to this Project's Context — automatically. You don't paste anything anywhere.

This is another moment Cowork actually does something for you.

The prompt below ends with Cowork creating the Google Doc, saving it to Drive, and re-uploading the file to this Project's Context. Three actions, all done for you, while you watch.

The Dashboard Blueprint interview prompt — paste into a new chat in your Student Dashboard Cowork Project

I'm building my Student Dashboard for the AI for Real Life · Student Hustle course. I need you to interview me to build my Dashboard Blueprint — the style guide you'll use every time you update my dashboard artifact. BEFORE YOU ASK ANY QUESTIONS: read my Application Profile and my How I Actually Learn doc (both uploaded to this Project's Context panel). Pre-fill any answers you can extract from those files — name, school, year, major, classes I'm currently taking, my pace and energy patterns, my voice. Only ask me the questions where those files don't have the answer or where the dashboard needs more specific context than they cover (visual feel, colors, density, tone of dashboard text, exclusions, custom blocks). Ask remaining questions ONE AT A TIME. Wait for my answer before asking the next. Keep your own commentary to a single sentence between questions. The questions to draw from (skip any you can answer from the uploaded files): 1. Name to use in the greeting (the form your friends use, not necessarily your full first name). 2. School and year — high school junior/senior or college and which year. Pull from Application Profile if there. 3. The countdown that should sit in the greeting strip — graduation, end of semester, next big deadline, application due date, or none. Your call. 4. What time do I usually open the dashboard, and what's the first thing my eyes should land on? 5. Visual feel — clean and minimal / warm and a little personal / sharp and high-contrast / soft and calm. Pick one. 6. Two colors that feel like mine. (One accent, one background tint. Or just "default" and we use the course palette.) 7. Density — a lot of info at once / medium / minimal. Match how I actually like to read. 8. Tone of dashboard text (greetings, nudges): direct and short / warm and personal / dry and a little funny / minimal / other. 9. Anything I explicitly do not want auto-surfaced on the dashboard. (Examples some students give: GPA, specific assignment grades, money totals, certain classes' deadlines.) After the last question, produce the final Blueprint in this exact format: STUDENT DASHBOARD BLUEPRINT Name: [answer 1] School / Year: [answer 2] Countdown: [answer 3] Morning rhythm: [answer 4] Visual feel: [answer 5] Colors: [answer 6] Density: [answer 7] Tone: [answer 8] Excluded: [answer 9] Keep the Blueprint under 400 words. THEN, USING COWORK, do all three of these for me — don't ask permission, just do them and tell me when done: 1. Create a new Google Doc titled "Dashboard Blueprint" with the Blueprint contents. 2. Save the Doc to a Google Drive folder called "AI for Real Life — Student Hustle" (create the folder if it doesn't exist). 3. Upload a copy of the Blueprint to this Cowork Project's Context panel so future dashboard updates can read it. When all three are done, share the Drive link with me and confirm the Context upload.

Drive not connected yet?

Open Settings → Connectors → Google Drive in the Claude desktop app and authorize. Once it's connected, the prompt above works as written. If Drive isn't connected, Cowork will pause and ask you to connect it before saving the Doc — same end result, one extra step.

Build the skeleton — one prompt, one artifact, one moment.

Here's the prompt that brings your dashboard into existence. One copy-paste. You'll watch the Cowork sidebar open, the artifact build in front of you, and — about 60 seconds later — you'll have the first version of the page that's going to be with you for the rest of school.

This prompt assumes the Coach (and Applications, if it exists) are linked from screen 3. If you skipped that linking step, the Coach Shortcut and Application Deadlines blocks fall back to placeholders — go back and link them, then re-run this prompt.

One pattern to know before the build — the "current-state artifact" convention.

Several dashboard blocks read from a current-state artifact saved by the Project that owns that block. The Coach saves current-week-priorities (per the Sunday Reset in 9.2). The Coach also saves upcoming-runway (per the Pre-Exam Watch in 9.3). The Applications Project (if you have one) saves upcoming-deadlines. The pattern is the same in every case: your Project does the curated thinking once, saves it with a known filename, and the dashboard reads it back without re-asking. That preserves your intentionality — the priorities you set on Sunday stay set all week, and the dashboard isn't quietly regenerating different answers each time you open it.

You won't have all of these saved yet at this moment in the course. The skeleton build below references them by name so each block lights up automatically the moment 10.3 or 10.4 puts it in place.

Still inside your Student Dashboard Project chat (with the Blueprint uploaded), paste the prompt below.
Hit enter. Watch the Cowork sidebar open on the right.
Don't touch anything for 60 seconds. Let Claude finish the full build before you react to the halfway state.
When done, the artifact is visible in your sidebar. Look at it. Scroll through the blocks. The Greeting, Today, Family/Self info, and Quick Prompts blocks should already be filled. The rest will show empty-state placeholders — that's correct. They light up as you complete 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5.

The skeleton build prompt — paste into your Student Dashboard chat

Build my Student Dashboard as a live artifact in the Cowork sidebar. Use my Blueprint (uploaded to this Project) for style, colors, tone, and density. Use the create_artifact tool — this is a persistent artifact, not an inline canvas. The dashboard is structured as a responsive single-page HTML layout with these blocks in this order. For each block I'll tell you whether it's live (pulls data now) or placeholder (empty-state card that downstream lessons will fill). 1. GREETING STRIP (live, top of page): A short "Morning, [my Blueprint name]" using the tone from my Blueprint, plus today's date and the countdown specified in my Blueprint (e.g., "187 days to graduation"). No weather unless my Blueprint asked for it. 2. TODAY VIEW (live): Pull today's events from my connected Google Calendar. Show up to 6 events with time and title. If no events today, show "Nothing on the calendar today — a gift." Include a small "tap to see full week" link that opens the week view of my calendar. 3. THE RUNWAY (live if my Coach has an upcoming-runway artifact saved per the Pre-Exam Watch from 9.3; placeholder otherwise): Show the next 3 academic items I should be working toward — a test, a paper, a problem set, a project. For each one, show: the class, the assignment, days remaining, and whether the Coach has flagged it as "on the runway" (start now), "in the wind" (start soon), or "watch" (later). If the upcoming-runway artifact doesn't exist yet, show the placeholder: "The Runway lights up after 10.4 wires Pre-Exam Watch. Until then, this block is empty on purpose." 4. APPLICATION DEADLINES (live if my Applications Cowork Project from M6.2 is linked AND it has an upcoming-deadlines artifact; placeholder otherwise): Show my next 3 application deadlines (college apps, scholarships, jobs, internships). For each: name of the application, days remaining, and current state (drafting / awaiting recommendation / submitted / accepted / declined). If I'm not in application season yet, hide this block entirely (don't show a placeholder — just skip it). 5. TOP 3 PRIORITIES TODAY (placeholder until 10.4): Empty-state card reading "Top 3 Priorities lights up after 10.4 wires Sunday Reset. Sunday's reset will save your Monday-through-Sunday priorities here, and this block surfaces today's three." 6. QUICK PROMPTS (live, partial): A grid of four large buttons that open new Claude chats in the Coach with pre-filled prompts. For now, use these four defaults: "Explain this concept" / "Quiz me on a topic" / "Edit my draft (Voice Profile loaded)" / "Brain dump → triaged list." Note in the block: "These four upgrade in 10.5 to the prompts you actually run." 7. BRAIN DUMP BUTTON (live): A single big button labeled "Brain dump." Tapping it opens a new chat in the Coach with the M8.5 brain-dump-to-triage prompt pre-loaded. One-tap. 8. COACH SHORTCUT (live if Coach is linked, placeholder otherwise): A card showing the linked Coach Project's name, last-updated timestamp, and a "Open the Coach" button that opens a new chat there. If the Coach isn't linked, show the placeholder: "Link your Coach Cowork Project to this Dashboard's references panel to activate this block." 9. PRINT BUTTON (utility): A small "Print" button in the top-right corner of the dashboard. Clicking it opens the browser's print dialog with print-optimized CSS — collapses any expandable cards to show all content inline, fits cleanly on standard letter paper. Useful for sticking the week on a fridge, taping inside a notebook, or showing a parent / advisor what your week looks like. STYLE: — Use my Blueprint colors and visual feel. — Rounded cards, soft drop shadows, generous padding. — Sans-serif, clean. Use small simple line icons only where a block needs one. — Every placeholder block uses a muted, low-contrast treatment so it's clearly "not yet" without looking broken. — Mobile-responsive (I may open this on my phone sometimes). DON'T: — Don't show live data I didn't give you access to. — Don't invent my deadlines or priorities — show the placeholder if the source Project isn't populated. — Don't add blocks not on this list. — Don't ask me design questions during the build — use the Blueprint. If something is truly ambiguous, ask ONE question at the end. — Don't embed any draft text from essays, applications, or recommendation letters in any block. Deadlines and statuses only. (The Honest Work Code at the dashboard layer.) Build it now. Keep it clean. When done, briefly tell me what's live vs. placeholder so I know what's working today.

If the build stalls or the sidebar doesn't open —

Don't panic. Two common fixes: (1) Make sure Cowork is toggled on in your message bar before you send the prompt. (2) Make sure the Blueprint is uploaded (the Context panel should show a file). If both are right and Claude is still just chatting with you instead of building an artifact, add this line to the bottom of the prompt and re-send: "Build this as a persistent artifact in the Cowork sidebar using the create_artifact tool. Don't render it as inline chat or as a temporary canvas."

Make it yours, and learn the pattern that 10.3–10.5 use.

The skeleton is up. It probably isn't perfect — it's your dashboard, and it should feel like yours, not like a stranger's room. The good news: you change it by asking, the same way you change anything in Claude. Here's the iteration pattern, then the rest of M10's preview.

The "update my dashboard" pattern — you'll use this in 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5

Open a new chat in your Student Dashboard Cowork Project. This keeps your custom instructions and Blueprint in context.
Tell Claude exactly what to change — the block name and the change. Don't describe the whole dashboard; just the diff.
Claude updates the existing artifact (it won't make a new one if you word it as an update). The change appears in the sidebar within 30 seconds.
If you hate it, say so — "revert the Today block to how it was before" or "undo that change." Claude restores the previous version.

Three starter iteration prompts — to make the skeleton feel like yours

Update my Student Dashboard artifact. On the Greeting Strip, change the greeting from "Morning" to [your preferred greeting — "Hey," "Sup," "Hi," whatever fits how you actually talk]. Keep everything else the same. Update my Student Dashboard artifact. In the Quick Prompts block, swap the four default buttons for these four instead: [list four prompts you actually run a lot]. Keep the visual style of the buttons the same; just change what they fire. Update my Student Dashboard artifact. Move the Today View block above the Greeting Strip — I want the date and events visible first, greeting second. Keep everything else in the same order.

How to find your dashboard tomorrow (and every day after).

Open the Claude desktop app. Make sure Cowork is on. Click Artifacts in the right sidebar. Click Student Dashboard. The page opens with fresh data pulled from your calendar and email. That's it — no new chat needed. If you want to change something, then open a chat in your Student Dashboard Project and ask. Otherwise just read and close.

Pin it to your morning routine.

Some students put a sticky note on their laptop that just says "Open the Dashboard" until the habit lands. Some pin the Claude desktop app to their dock or taskbar so it's the first icon they hit after coffee. In 10.4 we'll wire a Daily Brief variant that, on weekdays, opens the Dashboard and texts you a 4-bullet "what's different from yesterday" summary — but until then, the manual routine is one click on the desktop app. Skip a day; come back; nothing breaks. The dashboard waits.

📸 Screenshot the skeleton — piece 2 of your keepsake.

10.1 produced your Pain Map (workbook panel 1). 10.2 produces the dashboard itself. Take a screenshot of the freshly-built skeleton with all its placeholders visible — that's piece 2. By the end of M10 you'll have the dashboard, four filled workbook panels, and a 7-day log. The screenshot shows where you started.

One last move — wire the dashboard to read your whole stack.

You just built the dashboard. Right now it knows about your Coach (and your Applications Project, if it's linked). Across the next three lessons you'll tune the Coach (10.3), wire three scheduled tasks (10.4), and save your prompt library (10.5). The dashboard should read each one the moment it exists, without you having to come back and re-wire anything.

One paste-in handles that — a rule you add to the Student Dashboard Project's custom instructions now. Each block falls back to a placeholder until the relevant Project or artifact exists. The blocks light up automatically as you complete each downstream lesson's save step. Forward-wiring, done once.

Cross-Project awareness — paste into Student Dashboard Cowork Project custom instructions (append to the bottom)

CROSS-PROJECT AWARENESS RULE When I ask you to refresh, update, or rebuild my Student Dashboard artifact, do NOT limit yourself to this Project's uploaded files. Also pull from the following named artifacts in linked Projects (these are the "current-state" artifacts established across the course; if an artifact doesn't exist yet because the relevant module hasn't been completed, fall back to the placeholder for that block): - COACH (linked) → read the upcoming-runway artifact (per the Pre-Exam Watch in 9.3) and render into The Runway block. Read the current-week-priorities artifact (per the Sunday Reset in 9.2) and render into the Top 3 Priorities Today block. Read the saved starter prompts (set in 10.5) and render into the Quick Prompts block. - APPLICATIONS COWORK PROJECT (linked, if it exists) → read the upcoming-deadlines artifact and render into the Application Deadlines block. If no upcoming-deadlines artifact exists, hide the block entirely (don't show a placeholder — just skip it). I'm not in application season every term. - PERSONAL COWORK PROJECT (linked, after 10.5) → read any saved starter prompts and add them to the Quick Prompts block under a "Life" subsection separate from the academic ones. Pull rules: - Only read current state. Never modify other Projects. - If a Project artifact hasn't been updated in 14+ days during a school week, flag it as "stale" in the relevant block instead of pretending it's current. - Never auto-pull files whose names start with "DRAFT_" — those are works-in-progress and don't belong on the dashboard. - Never auto-pull anything from a Project with "ARCHIVED" or "OLD" in its name. - Never auto-pull recommendation letter content, application essay text, or graded paper drafts. Deadlines and statuses only — never the writing itself. (Honest Work Code, dashboard layer.) - If you can't reach a Project for any reason, show the block's last good state plus a "(last refresh: DATE)" note. Never invent data. When refreshing, always confirm at the end: "Refreshed from: [list of Projects actually pulled]."

The "Refreshed from" line is the feedback loop.

That final confirmation tells you which Projects Claude actually reached — and which it didn't. If your Applications Project isn't in the list and you expected it to be, you know something's off (it's not linked, it's named differently, the artifact wasn't saved). Without it, silent failure is possible. With it, you notice problems on refresh #1 instead of refresh #20.

The full refresh command — one sentence, once a week.

The rule above teaches Claude what "refresh" means; the command below is how you invoke it. Say it during your Sunday Reset or any time you want the dashboard to catch up. You can also drop it into a weekly Sunday scheduled task in 10.4 so the dashboard rebuilds itself before you open Cowork on Monday morning.

The full refresh trigger — say this in chat or by voice dispatch

Cowork: do a full refresh on my Student Dashboard. Pull from all linked Projects using the cross-project awareness rule. Update every block that's changed. Leave blocks that haven't changed alone. Confirm at the end with the "Refreshed from:" list.

The privacy guardrail — what should NOT auto-surface.

Some things are dashboard data. Some things are personal or are mid-draft. The cross-Project rule above already excludes draft files and archived Projects, but the full guardrail is worth naming, because cross-Project awareness makes it possible to over-expose things you never meant the dashboard to see.

Auto-pull — fine

Calendar events
Upcoming deadlines (titles + dates only)
Application deadlines + status flags
Top priorities (from Sunday Reset)
Saved starter prompts
Course names & syllabus dates

Pull only on explicit ask

Specific assignment grades
GPA
Money totals or transactions
Personal statement subject matter
Big-call deliberations from M8.6
Anything you flagged as Excluded in your Blueprint

Never auto-pull

Any essay, paper, or application draft text
Recommendation letter content
Any file starting with "DRAFT_"
Anything in an Archived Project
Voice Profile contents (it lives in Coach, not on the dashboard)

The Honest Work Code, applied to your dashboard.

The dashboard surfaces where work is happening. It never produces the work itself. Deadlines, statuses, priorities, prompts — yes. Draft text, essay paragraphs, recommendation letters, graded submissions — never. If you ever find yourself asking the dashboard to "show me my draft of X" — close that prompt, open the Coach, and do the writing there with the Voice Profile and the M4.5 edit-don't-write workflow. The dashboard is a deck of cards. Your work happens at the desk.

Up next: 10.3: Upgrade Your Academic Coach

Your dashboard exists. Empty Coach panel waiting on it. 10.3 is where you tune the Coach — refresh the four staple files, refresh the standing brief, run the one-time tuning move that makes a Coach feel tuned instead of generic. By the end of 10.3, the Coach Shortcut block on your dashboard will be live with the right context behind it.

Continue to 10.3 — Upgrade Your Coach →