Hold Course

Always know where you are.

Hold Course is an academic tracker for Obsidian. Add your semesters and classes, log your lectures, and track your assignments and exams — all in one place, all in your vault. No syncing, no accounts. Just your courses, clearly laid out.

Hold Course runs on desktop and mobile.

Screenshots

Show screenshots

Overview

Adding a class

Adding a class: schedule

Moving a class

Bulk-adding lectures

Lecture page: Create a note

Class page: assignments

Readings

Editing a reading

Exams

Grades

Attendance

Library

Adding a library resource

Bulk-adding resources

Calendar (month)

Calendar (week)

Assignments view

Courses

Syllabus note

Exported syllabus

Settings: Export

Table of Contents

• What It Is
• Installation
• Getting Started
• Today Strip
• Semesters
• Classes
• Moving a Class
• Copying a Class
• Lectures
• Assignments
• Readings
• Exams
• Grades
• Attendance
• Library
• Syllabus
• Calendar View
• Assignments View
• Courses
• HC Today Sidebar
• Daily Note Agenda
• Export
• Command Palette Shortcuts
• Linked Notes
• Settings
• For Teachers
• Mobile
• Data Storage

What It Is

Hold Course grew out of a simple frustration: syllabi don't fit cleanly into task lists. I'm a self-learner, working through courses and curricula on my own schedule, and what started as a manageable system of lists eventually became its own job — tracking lectures, chasing readings, and trying to remember what connected to what. Hold Course is what I personally needed: an academic tracker that lives inside my vault, where my notes and resources are a click away instead of scattered somewhere else entirely.

Hold Course is built around a simple premise: you should always know exactly where you are in a course — which lectures you've attended, which assignments are coming, and what needs your attention today. It tells you where things stand. The rest is up to you.

Classes are organized into semesters. Each class holds its own lectures, assignments, exams, and a library of resources referenced across your coursework. You advance items through their status as you go, and optionally link anything to notes in your vault. The plugin tracks the rest.

Installation

Search for Hold Course in Obsidian's community plugin browser (Settings > Community plugins > Browse), install, and enable it. The plugin adds two icons to your left ribbon: Hold Course (the graduation cap) opens the main tab, and Hold Course — Today (the calendar clock) opens the Today sidebar.

Getting Started

Click the Hold Course ribbon icon to open the plugin. It opens as a full-width tab.

On first launch you'll see the Overview — an empty workspace. Here's the typical setup flow for a new semester:

1. Create a semester using the semester dropdown at the top of the Overview.
2. Add your classes to the semester — one for each course you're taking.
3. Open a class and start adding lectures. You can add all your lectures up front and fill in assignments later, or build them out together as you work through the syllabus — whichever fits how you read a course schedule.
4. Add exams on the Exams tab for any high-stakes dates you need to track separately.
5. Add resources to the Library as you encounter them, or quick-add them from within a lecture or assignment and fill in the details later.

From there, it's a matter of advancing item statuses as the semester moves. To see what a semester in progress looks like, open Screenshots at the top of this page.

Today Strip

The Overview opens with a strip summarizing what needs attention right now, drawn from assignments across every class in the active semester.

Overdue: Any assignment past its due date and not marked done, oldest first. This column only appears when something is actually overdue — no overdue work, no column.

Due Today: Assignments due today.

Coming Up: The next several assignments due after today, soonest first.

Click any item in the strip to jump straight to its detail screen.

Semesters

The semester dropdown at the top of the Overview lets you switch between semesters or create a new one. Only one semester is active at a time, but your data from previous semesters stays in place. Semesters are listed oldest to newest by term and year, not by the order you created them.

Creating a semester: Open the dropdown and click + New Semester.

Switching semesters: Select any semester from the dropdown.

Renaming a semester: Open the dropdown and select Rename Semester.

Removing a semester from the list: Open the dropdown and select Remove from list. This clears the semester out of the dropdown so old terms don't pile up — it doesn't delete anything. Every class, lecture, assignment, and resource stays exactly where it was. Only appears when more than one semester is visible.

Restoring a removed semester: Open the dropdown and select Show removed semesters, then choose the one you want back. Restoring a semester also switches you to it. Only appears when at least one semester is removed.

Deleting a semester: Open the dropdown and select Delete Semester. Since this removes every class, lecture, assignment, exam, and library resource under that semester, the confirmation dialog states exactly how much is about to be deleted. This cannot be undone.

Classes

Inside a semester, each class appears as a card on the Overview showing the class name, course code, and instructor.

Adding a class: Click + Add Class to open the Add Class dialog, organized into three tabs so the form never requires scrolling to find Save:

• Details — class name, class code, course page URL, Audit, Track grades, and (when grades are tracked) credits and final grade
• People — professor name and email, office hours, TA name and email and office hours
• Schedule — Self-paced and Online (no meeting time) toggles, meeting days, location, start/end date, start/end time, a meeting link, and Track attendance with an optional minimum

Only the class name is required; fill in the rest as you have it. A class without a code is shown by its name wherever the code would appear.

Opening a class: Click the class card. Each class has five tabs: Lectures, Assignments, Readings, Exams, and Library, plus a sixth, Grades, when the class tracks grades.

Editing, copying, or deleting a class: On the dashboard, hovering near the top right of a class card reveals a menu to Edit class and Delete class. Copy to semester… is on the class's own menu and on its right-click menu in Courses — see Copying a Class. A class can also be edited from the Edit button in its detail screen — editing uses the same Details/People/Schedule tabs as adding a class.

Class schedule: When a class has meeting days, a start and end time, and a start and end date all set, Hold Course knows exactly when that class meets. Log a lecture on a day that matches, and its meeting time is shown automatically — no need to re-enter it per lecture. Leave any one of those fields blank and nothing changes: this is entirely opt-in, and existing classes are unaffected until you fill them in. Times are entered with a custom picker — hour and minute dropdowns with an AM/PM toggle — to match the rest of the plugin.

Online classes: For a class with no live meetings, turn on Online (no meeting time) at the top of the Schedule tab. Meeting days, times, location, and meeting link are hidden, and the class shows an Online tag on its card and in its header instead. Start and end dates still apply, and the course page URL stays on the Details tab. Anything you'd already entered in the hidden fields is kept, not deleted — turn the toggle off and it comes back.

Audit and self-paced classes: Turn on Audit (Details tab) for a class you're taking without credit, and Self-paced (Schedule tab) for one with no set meetings that you work through on your own schedule. A class can be both. Each shows a badge, Audit or Self-paced, in the class header and on its card.

Each one also changes a related setting for you, which you can change back:

• Turning on Audit turns off Track grades, so the class has no grades or credits. Credits and final grade are kept, hidden, in case you turn grades back on.
• Turning on Self-paced turns on Online, so the meeting fields are hidden.

Turning either one off changes nothing else.

Lecture progress: Once you've marked at least one lecture done, the class card shows a progress fraction — lectures completed out of total logged.

Next up: A class with no meeting days and no dates set anywhere — no lecture, assignment, or exam dates — shows a Next up section on its card instead of a permanently empty "No assignments due" line. It points to the next lecture you haven't finished, plus any unread reading tied to it. Classes with a real schedule or any due dates are unaffected; this only applies to fully self-paced work.

Professor email: If an email address is saved to the class, it appears as a clickable link that opens your operating system's default mail client.

Note: The professor email link requires a default mail client configured on your system (such as Mail on macOS or Outlook on Windows). If no default mail client is set, the link may not open.

Course page URL: If a URL is saved to the class, it appears as a quiet external-link icon next to the class name on the dashboard card, and as a "Course page" link in the class header. Useful for linking to a course portal, Coursera page, or syllabus hosted online.

Meeting link: A recurring meeting link — Zoom or similar — kept separate from the course page URL, since a course portal and a place to join class are different things. It appears in the class header next to the meeting days, because when class happens and how you get there is really one question.

Meeting time, location, and date range on the card: When a class has meeting days set, they appear as day chips on the class card. If a start and end time are also set, the meeting time shows inline with the chips, no extra height added. Location and date range appear as a separate row on the card, but only when at least one of them is set — useful for a partial-term class or telling an in-person class from an online one at a glance.

Office hours and TA: A class can record office hours for the professor, and a name, email, and office hours for a teaching assistant. The class header shows the professor and the TA side by side as labeled blocks of equal weight, with a divider between them.

All of this is optional, and nothing is drawn until it has content. A person appears once any one of their fields is filled in. The TA block is absent entirely until it has something to show. The divider appears only when there are two blocks to divide. A class with nothing but a name shows a header with nothing but a name.

Moving a Class

A class can move to a different semester without losing anything logged under it — lectures, assignments, exams, contacts, and notes all travel with it.

This is most useful if you're building your own curriculum across terms — a class you planned yourself gets pushed to a later term instead of dropped, and everything already typed into it needs to survive the move. If you're taking classes on a school's own semester schedule, you likely won't need this.

Moving a class: Right-click a class in the Courses view, or open its card menu on the Overview and select Move to semester. Choose a target semester and confirm.

Resources: A resource used only by the moving class moves with it. A resource shared with other classes staying behind is copied instead, so the classes that stay keep their copy and nothing breaks on either side.

Note: A class can move out of a removed semester, but not into one. Restore the semester first if you want to move a class there.

Copying a Class

Copying makes a fresh version of a class in any semester — next term's run of the same course, or a second section in the same term. The original isn't changed.

Copying a class: Choose Copy to semester… from the class's menu, or right-click it in the Courses view. Pick the semester; a class copied into its own semester gets " (copy)" added to its code.

What comes along: Lectures, assignments, exams, and Library books. Within the same semester the copy shares the existing books; in another semester it gets its own copies, marked Unread.

Dates: Give the copy a new start date and every date moves with it, in whole weeks so lectures keep their weekdays. Or clear the dates and fill them in later. If the class has no start date, you can also keep its dates as they are.

Starting over: Statuses, grades, reading progress, and the class's status reset, so the copy starts fresh. Your notes and note links come along unless you turn off Keep notes and note links. A color you chose for the class is kept; an automatic one gets the first free color in the new semester.

Lectures

Inside a class, the Lectures tab lists all logged lectures in order.

Adding a lecture: Click + Add Lecture and fill in the title and date.

Bulk adding lectures: Click Bulk add to open a paste box for entering a whole schedule at once — one lecture per line.

Dates can be filled in for you. Pick the first day of class, confirm the meeting days, and dates walk the calendar from there, one lecture per meeting. A blank line skips a meeting, which is how you handle a reading week or a holiday. A date at the end of a line marks that lecture as an out-of-band session — a guest lecture or a makeup — placing it on that date without consuming a meeting slot. ISO (2026-08-24), Aug 24 / 24 Aug, and numeric (8/24) formats are all accepted.

For an online class, automatic dating is hidden, since there are no meeting days to follow; a date typed at the end of a line is still used.

A live preview shows every parsed lecture and the date it will land on before anything is added. Short titles are highlighted for a second look, since a pasted line break can quietly split one lecture into two. A bulk add can't be undone in a single step, so the preview is worth reading.

Status: Each lecture has a status pill that cycles through Not Started / In Progress / Done. Click the pill — from the list or the detail screen — to advance it. Done lectures appear with muted styling — present in the record, but visually stepped back so your attention goes to what's ahead. Completed lectures can be hidden completely by using the Show done/Hide done toggle.

Sort order: Use the sort toggle to switch between oldest-first and newest-first. Dated lectures sort by date. A lecture without a date stays where you added it, so an undated Lecture 1 still comes before a dated Lecture 2. Lecture numbers follow the same order.

Lecture detail: Click a lecture to open its detail screen, where you can edit its fields, jot key concepts and lesson goals, link the lecture to a note in your vault or create a new one, and see every assignment attached to it. Assignments can be added here one at a time or in bulk.

Assignments

Inside a class, the Assignments tab lists all logged assignments.

Adding an assignment: Click + Add Assignment and fill in the title, due date, type, and any other details.

Due time: An assignment can also have a Due time, for work due at 11:59 PM or before class. The time shows on the assignment's page, in the HC Today sidebar and the daily note agenda, and on the Calendar, and a timed assignment sorts by its time in Today. Leave it blank and the assignment is due that day, as before.

Bulk adding assignments: Open a lecture and click Bulk add in its Assignments section. One assignment per line — each becomes an assignment attached to that lecture and inherits the lecture's date as its due date. One type applies to the whole batch, so paste one kind at a time. A live preview shows every assignment before anything is added, and the same caution applies: check the rows, because a bulk add can't be undone in a single step.

Assignment types: Each assignment has a type — Reading, Writing, Project, Discussion, or Other — color-coded throughout the plugin so you can scan quickly.

Your own types: Choose New type… in the Type menu when adding or editing an assignment (or in Bulk add) and give it a name, such as Lab, Homework, or Presentation. Your types are shared by all your classes and semesters, appear in every type filter, and use the same gray as Other. Rename or delete them under Settings > Assignment types: renaming updates every assignment that uses the type, and deleting one changes those assignments to Other.

Grade: Assignments have an optional grade field. Fill it in after graded work is returned. Once an assignment is marked done, a recorded grade appears as a quiet pill next to its title in every list view. Grade doesn't apply to Readings, so the field is never shown there. You can also turn grading off entirely for a class — see the Track grades toggle under Classes — which hides the Grade field and chip everywhere for that class, useful for self-study. Marking a class Audit turns Track grades off for you.

Filtering: Use the All types dropdown to show only one kind of assignment. The Show done/Hide Done toggle works alongside the filter — they stack.

Status: Each assignment has a status pill that cycles through Not Started/In Progress/Done. Click the pill — from any list or the detail screen — to advance it. Done assignments appear with muted styling across all views. Completed assignments can be hidden completely by using the Show done/Hide done toggle.

Term-window flag: If an assignment or exam falls outside its class's own start and end dates, a small warning icon appears next to its title. It catches a due date that's drifted outside the term without you having to cross-check dates by hand. The icon only appears once a class has both dates set on its Schedule tab, and clears on its own once the item is marked done.

Word goal (Writing): Link a Writing assignment to its draft note, then turn on Track a word goal in the assignment's Word Goal section and enter a target word count and a date (defaults to the due date). Hold Course counts what's in the draft and shows what's left, for example 1,800 words to go, 4 days — ~450/day, on the assignment and as a Goal: line in the class's Assignments tab. There's nothing to log: keep writing in the draft and the count updates the next time you look. The info tooltip shows words written so far. Click the line to change the target or date. Like reading pace, the per-day figure is recalculated from what's left: writing more lowers it, and a day passing raises it.

Assignment detail: Click an assignment to open its detail screen, where you can edit all fields, link the assignment to a note in your vault or create a new one, or quick-add a resource to the Library.

Readings

Inside a class, the Readings tab lists everything assigned as reading — pulled out of Assignments into its own view, since a reading is prep tied to a lecture rather than graded, deadline-driven work.

Adding a reading: Click + Add Reading. Since this tab is reading-only, there's no type to choose — it's locked in for you.

Context: Each reading shows either Class-level or the lecture it's attached to (Before Lecture 3 — Cell Structure, for example), so you know what it's tied to at a glance.

Linked Book: Link a reading directly to a resource in the Library to see its title and author right on the row. Unlinked readings show No linked book.

Status and due date: Readings use the same Not Started / In Progress / Done status pill and due-date display as Assignments. Use the Show done/Hide done toggle to declutter a finished reading list.

Readings never show a grade field or grade chip — grading doesn't apply to them.

Reading pace

Turn on Track pace for this reading on a reading and Hold Course will work out how much a day it takes to finish on time. A reading can be measured in pages, which you enter, or in words, counted from a linked note (see Measuring in words below). For pages, it asks two things: how many pages in total, and by what date (defaults to the due date).

The page count is whatever you say it is. Hold Course never looks at how long a book or PDF is — it only knows the number you typed. If a 400-page book is assigned but you only need chapters 4–7, enter the pages for chapters 4–7. If a reading spans two books and a PDF, add them up and enter one number.

Logging works the same way. Open Log progress and enter your running total in Pages read so far. Hold Course doesn't track which book or file those pages came from — 20 pages of one and 10 of another is just 30. Use Edit setup on that same dialog to change the total or the target date later.

The number moves in two directions. It isn't a record of what you were supposed to do today; it's recalculated every time from what's left and how long you have — pages remaining divided by days remaining, counting today. So logging pages lowers it, and a day passing raises it. Say you have 20 pages to read over five days:

Reading one page on day one doesn't make the number jump — you still have the rest of the day. Falling behind shows up the next morning, when the days-remaining figure drops and the pace rises to match. Both numbers are on the line so you can see which one moved.

The pace figure also appears as its own column in the cross-class Assignments view.

Measuring in words

When a reading is linked to a Markdown note, the setup dialog offers Measure by: Pages / Words, with Words chosen for you. Hold Course then counts the note's words itself, leaving out frontmatter, comments, embeds, and link targets, and shows the pace in minutes:

~40 min left, 3 days — ~13 min/day

The word count is in the info tooltip next to the line. Minutes come from your reading speed, set under Settings > Reading pace > Words per minute (225 by default; lower it for dense or technical reading).

Logging: click the pace line and choose where you are in Finished through: Not started, any heading in the note, or Finished. Choosing a heading counts that section, everything above it, and any subheadings under it as read. A note with no headings asks for a percent instead.

The count follows the note. If you edit the note, it's recounted the next time you look. If you rename or delete the heading you logged, the reading keeps its last count and Log progress asks you to pick again. If the linked note itself goes missing, the line says Linked note missing.

Switching: change between pages and words any time in Edit setup. Each keeps its own progress, so switching back loses nothing. Readings linked to a PDF or a book are measured in pages.

Exams

Inside a class, the Exams tab lists scheduled exams with their dates and a live countdown to each one.

Adding an exam: Click + Add Exam and fill in the name and date.

Start and end time: Give an exam a Start time, and an End time if you know it (an end time needs a start time). The times show on the exam's page, in Today and the daily note agenda, and on the Calendar. Leave them blank for an all-day entry.

Exam types: Each exam has a type: Exam, Midterm, Final, or Quiz. Choose New type… in the Type menu to add your own, such as Oral exam or Practical. The type shows under the exam's name (except plain Exam), on the Calendar, and in an exported syllabus. Each type gets its own weight on the Grades tab. Rename or delete your own types under Settings > Exam types: deleting one changes those exams to Exam, and its weight is added to Exam's.

Countdowns: Each exam shows how many days away it is, updated automatically.

Status: Exams are a simple done / not done toggle — click the status control on the exam row, or open the detail screen and use the Mark done button. A recorded grade appears as a quiet pill on done exams. Done exams can be hidden using the Show done/Hide done toggle on the Exams tab.

Exams appear on the Calendar in their own color, distinct from lectures and assignments.

Grades

A class with Track grades on has a Grades tab. It works out your grade from the grades you've already entered on assignments and exams. There's nothing new to fill in on each item.

What counts: a grade is read as a percent. "92", "92%", and "18/20" (90%) all work, and a letter such as "A-" counts as the middle of its band on the grading scale. Scores over 100% are allowed. Anything else, such as "pass", is left out, and the Graded work table at the bottom of the tab shows which items were and weren't counted. Readings aren't graded work.

Weights: enter the percent of the final grade for each assignment type and each exam type (a midterm at 25% and a final at 40%, for example), from your syllabus. Leave them all blank to count every graded item equally. If the weights don't add up to 100, Hold Course scales them and says so.

Target: enter the grade you're aiming for, a letter or a percent. Hold Course tells you the average you need on the remaining work to reach it. Remaining work is anything not graded yet.

Grading scale: A–F by default (A from 93, A- from 90, B+ from 87, and so on down to F). Change it for all classes in Settings → Grades, or turn on Use a different scale for this class on a class's Grades tab.

Current grade vs. final grade:

• The current grade is the one on the Grades tab. It's calculated from your graded work so far, and the target uses it. It changes as you enter grades.
• The final grade is the one you type into Add class or Edit class, under Track grades. It's the official grade, as your school posts it. Hold Course doesn't check it against the calculation, and in Courses it takes the place of the calculated grade.

Leave Final grade blank until the school posts it. Until then, Courses shows the calculated grade, marked "so far".

Credits are entered in the same place. Courses adds them up.

Attendance

For a school with an attendance requirement, turn on Track attendance in Add class or Edit class → Schedule. Optionally, set a Minimum attendance (%).

Meetings come from the schedule. Attendance needs the class's meeting days, start and end times, and start and end dates. Hold Course works out each meeting from the start date through today; you don't add them. Online classes don't track attendance.

Marking: every meeting counts as present until you mark it otherwise. In the class header, the attendance line ("Attendance 92% (2 absences) · minimum 75%") opens the list of meetings, newest first. Mark each one Present, Absent, Excused, or Cancelled. You can also mark a meeting from its lecture: on a meeting date, a lecture shows the mark beside its date (a small check for present, or the word for anything else). Tap it to change the mark.

The percent is present meetings out of present plus absent. Excused and cancelled meetings don't count either way.

Warnings: with a minimum set, the class card on the dashboard shows the attendance line when you're within 5 points of the minimum or below it. Otherwise it stays out of the way.

Library

The Library tab collects every resource associated with a class — books, articles, reference works — into a single list. Resources accumulate here as you add them, and each one tracks which lectures and assignments reference it.

Adding a resource: Click + Add Resource to add a resource directly to the Library. Resource types include Book, PDF, Handout, Article, Online resource, and Other. If the title (and author) match a book already in the Library, a note under Author says so, with Use that one to add the book to this class instead of making a second copy. A title that's only similar gets a note to check, and nothing else changes.

Bulk add: To enter a whole reading list at once, click Bulk add and paste it, one resource per line as Title by Author. Two columns copied from a spreadsheet (title, then author) work too. Choose the classes, Required or Recommended, and the type (Book unless you change it), then check the preview before adding:

• a book already in the Library is added to the class instead of added twice (In Library: tag to…);
• a similar title is marked Check so you can untick it if it's the same book;
• untick any row to leave it out.

As with the other bulk dialogs, a pasted line break splits one entry into two, so read the preview.

Filter by class: The Library has an All classes filter, so you can view resources from a single class or across all your classes at once.

Status: Each resource has a status pill — Unread, In Progress, or Done — that you can advance as you read.

Required or recommended: Mark a resource Required or Recommended when adding or editing it. It shows in small italics under the author in the Library list, and an exported syllabus groups its reading list that way.

My copy: Where your copy is: Print, Kindle, Logos, PDF, Borrowed, Library, or anything you type. As you type, Hold Course suggests places you've used before. It shows on the resource's page and next to Required or Recommended in the Library list.

Reminder: A one-line note to yourself, such as "Can't find a copy, try the library," shown in italics under the author in the Library list. Set it in Add or Edit resource, or on the resource's page. It's separate from the resource's Notes, which are for reading notes.

Linked Book: Reading assignments can be linked directly to a resource in the Library. For all other assignment types, a Linked Note field is available instead. Both are set from the assignment's detail screen.

Resource detail: Click any resource to see everything associated with it: the classes it belongs to, its type, and every lecture and assignment that references it — each one clickable through to the item itself.

Arrows: The resource detail has previous/next arrows. They step through the Library list in its current order and class filter.

Syllabus

Hold Course can write a syllabus for any class as a regular note: the course details, reading list, grade weights, and a week-by-week schedule built from your lectures, assignments, and exams. Statuses, grades, and progress are never included.

Exporting: Open a class and select Syllabus in its header. Choose what else to include (Key Concepts & Lesson Goal under each lecture, links to linked notes, assignment and exam notes) and select Export. The syllabus is saved as <code> Syllabus.md in the folder set under Settings → Syllabus folder (the top of the vault if blank). If an earlier export is already there, you can Replace it or Keep both. Nothing is overwritten without asking.

Your syllabus note

The export covers what Hold Course knows. For the rest — description, objectives, requirements, policies — write a syllabus note. In Edit class → Syllabus note, select Create for a ready-made note (<code> Syllabus notes.md), or Browse to link one you already have.

The two files stay separate. The syllabus note is yours; the export reads it but never changes it. The exported syllabus is written by Hold Course and is replaced the next time you export, so make lasting edits in the note.

The quickest way to see how it works: create the note, type a line under Description, export, and compare the two.

How the note becomes the syllabus:

• Each ## section is copied in the note's order. Empty sections are left out.
• Text above the first ## heading becomes an introduction, right after the course details. Frontmatter, comments, and a # title line aren't copied.
• Three headings are filled in from the class, followed by anything you write under them:
  • Readings: the class's Library resources, grouped into Required and Recommended when you've marked them.
  • Grading: the grade weights and grading scale (graded classes with weights only).
  • Schedule: lectures, assignments, and exams by week.
• Move one of these headings to change where it goes. Delete it to leave that section out. The export dialog warns you when a section has content but no heading.
• Other common names work too:

Without a syllabus note, the export has the course details plus Readings, Grading, and Schedule.

Calendar View

The Calendar shows all your lectures, assignments, and exams across all classes in one view.

Week and month modes: Switch between views using the toggle in the upper left.

Legend: The top of the calendar shows a color key — lectures listed by class, assignments listed by type (Reading, Writing, Discussion, Project, Exam, Other). Exams from the Exams tab appear in their own color.

Class filter: Use the All classes dropdown at the bottom to narrow the calendar to a single class.

Show filter: Narrow the calendar by item kind — All, Lectures, Assignments, or Exams.

Type filter: Appears once the Show filter is narrowed to Assignments, letting you further narrow to a single assignment type (Reading, Writing, Project, Discussion, Other).

Meeting time on lecture entries: When a class's schedule fields are filled in (meeting days, start/end time, start/end date) and a lecture falls on a matching day, the calendar shows that meeting time directly on the lecture entry in both week and month view. Assignments with a due time and exams with a start time show their times the same way.

In your own calendar app: see Export to put Hold Course's schedule into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook.

Day detail: Click any day to open a popover listing every item scheduled for that date, each labeled with its type and class. Click any item in the popover to view its full detail screen.

Done items appear with strikethrough and muted styling in both the calendar and the day detail popover.

Assignments View

The Assignments button in the toolbar opens a cross-class view of every assignment in the current semester — all classes combined in one sortable table.

The table has seven columns: class code, type, title, due date, status, grade, and reading pace. Empty cells show a dash.

Sorting: Click a column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse.

Filtering: Use the class filter to narrow to a single class, and the type filter to show only one assignment type. Both filters stack, and the Show done toggle works alongside them.

Click any assignment to open its detail screen.

Inside a class, assignments still appear as cards — this table is only the global view, where seeing everything side by side is the point. On a narrow screen the table scrolls sideways rather than dropping columns, so nothing is hidden.

Courses

The Courses button in the toolbar opens a cross-semester view of every class you've logged, in one table — a record of what you've taken alongside what you're taking now, rather than a working view of the current term. The header shows the totals: how many classes across how many semesters, and your credits (dropped classes aren't counted).

Columns are semester, course code, course name, credits, grade, and status. On a phone, the course code is hidden to make room.

Grade: a final grade you typed in shows as entered. Otherwise the calculated grade shows in gray with its percent, marked "so far". A dash means there's no grade to show: the class isn't graded, has no graded work yet, or was dropped. An audited class shows Audit instead of the dash. Click a grade to open that class's Grades tab.

Filtering: The All years and All terms dropdowns narrow the list. Both stack.

Sorting: Click any column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse. Credits and Grade start highest first, and classes without a value always sort last.

Status: Each class can be marked Ongoing, Completed, or Dropped. Click the status cell to set it. A dash means no status is set yet — status is optional, and a class works exactly the same without one. Completed and dropped classes appear muted, so finished work steps back and current work stays prominent.

Click any row to open that class's Lectures tab. Right-clicking a class here is also how you move it to a different semester.

HC Today Sidebar

Hold Course adds an HC Today panel to Obsidian's right sidebar. It shows everything due or happening today and tomorrow — lectures, assignments, and exams, all classes combined.

Each item shows its title and a subtitle line with the class name and item type. Lectures are color-coded by class; assignments are color-coded by type — the same system used throughout the plugin. Items you've marked done appear with strikethrough and muted gray styling so finished work recedes and what's still ahead stays visible.

Opening: The sidebar opens when Obsidian starts. To keep it closed until you want it, turn off Settings → Display → Open Today when Obsidian starts. Either way, open it from the Hold Course — Today ribbon icon or the Open Hold Course — Today command. Hold Course keeps one Today tab; if a reload or a late start (with a plugin such as Lazy Loader) left extra copies, they're closed.

Times: Assignments with a due time and exams with a start time show it, and sort by it alongside lectures.

Navigating: Click any item to open the main Hold Course tab and navigate directly to that item's detail screen.

Auto-refresh: The sidebar updates automatically whenever you make a change in Hold Course, and again on its own if the date rolls over while Obsidian is left open — so Today and Tomorrow stay accurate even overnight. You don't need to refresh it manually.

Daily Note Agenda

Hold Course can show a day's agenda inside a note, which makes it a natural fit for your daily notes. Add this code block to a note, or to your daily note template so every new daily note gets one:

```hold-course-agenda
```

The command Insert live agenda block types it for you.

What it shows: overdue assignments first, each with its due date, then that day's lectures (with meeting times), assignments (with due times), and exams (with start times), styled like the HC Today sidebar. Readings with pace tracking and writing with a word goal show their pace line underneath. Done items are struck through. A day with nothing on it says Nothing scheduled.

Which day: in a daily note, the block reads the date from the note's name using your Daily Notes format, so last Tuesday's note shows last Tuesday. In any other note it shows today. To pick a date yourself, add a line inside the block:

```hold-course-agenda
date: 2026-10-20
```

Live: the block isn't text written into your note — it's drawn from your Hold Course data each time, so it stays current as you mark things done. Overdue items in an older note are as of that note's date; anything you've finished since drops off. Click any item to open it in Hold Course.

A fixed copy: to keep a plain list that won't change, use Insert agenda as text. It writes the same agenda as ordinary Markdown bullets at the cursor (plain bullets rather than checkboxes, so task plugins don't pick them up).

Export

Settings → Export writes Hold Course's data to files in your vault: a calendar file for your calendar app, a CSV for a spreadsheet, and a backup. The files go in the Export folder, or the top of the vault if it's blank.

Note: Obsidian doesn't list .ics, .csv, or .json files in the file explorer unless Settings → Files and links → Detect all file extensions is on. The files are there either way.

Calendar file

Export calendar writes Hold Course.ics for the current semester. Import it into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook.

• What's in it: lectures, assignments, and exams. Turn off Include lectures, Include assignments, or Include exams to leave any of them out.
• Times: a lecture gets its class's meeting time when the class has meeting days and times, an assignment its due time, and an exam its start and end time. Anything without a time is an all-day event. Times are written without a time zone, so 9:00 AM in Hold Course is 9:00 AM in your calendar.
• Done items stay in, with ✓ at the start of the title.

Importing is a one-time copy. Your calendar app doesn't see later changes in Hold Course. To catch up, export again and import the new file: events you'd already imported are updated rather than added a second time, and new ones are added. Something you deleted in Hold Course isn't deleted from your calendar app, so delete it there too.

Keep the calendar file up to date rewrites Hold Course.ics after every change in Hold Course. That keeps the file current, but your calendar app still needs a new import to see it, unless you subscribe instead. To subscribe, the file needs a web address: put the export folder in a cloud drive that can give the file a public link, then subscribe to that link in your calendar app. Calendar apps check subscriptions on their own schedule, which can be hours apart, and anyone with the link can see the calendar.

The file name never changes, so a subscription keeps working.

CSV

Export CSV writes Hold Course items <date>.csv: every lecture, assignment, and exam in every semester on your list, one row each, with its semester, class, lecture, title, type, date, times, status, and grade. It opens in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers.

Backup

Export backup writes Hold Course backup <date>.json, all of Hold Course's data in one file. Keep a copy somewhere other than this vault. Hold Course doesn't have a way to import it yet; it's there so your data is never only in one place. See also Data Storage.

If a CSV or backup with today's date already exists, the new one gets " 2" (then " 3", and so on) instead of replacing it.

The same three exports are in the command palette.

Command Palette Shortcuts

Hold Course registers several commands in Obsidian's command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+P) for quick access without opening the plugin first:

• Open Hold Course — opens the main tab
• Open Hold Course — Today — opens the Today sidebar
• Add a class — opens the Add Class dialog for the active semester
• Open calendar — opens the main tab and navigates directly to Calendar view
• Show global assignments — opens the main tab and navigates to the Assignments view
• Add a library resource — opens the Add Resource dialog for the active semester
• Add a lecture — opens the Add Lecture dialog for the current class (requires an open class screen)
• Add an assignment — opens the Add Assignment dialog for the current class (requires an open class screen)
• Export Hold Course data snapshot — copies data.json to a timestamped backup file in the plugin folder
• Insert live agenda block — adds a hold-course-agenda block at the cursor (see Daily Note Agenda)
• Insert agenda as text — writes the note's day's agenda as a plain Markdown list at the cursor
• Export calendar (.ics) — writes Hold Course.ics for the current semester (see Export)
• Export items as CSV — writes every lecture, assignment, and exam to a CSV file
• Export backup (JSON) — writes all of Hold Course's data to one JSON file

All commands are hotkey-bindable via Settings > Hotkeys.

Linked Notes

Any lecture, assignment, or exam can be linked to an existing note in your vault. Set the link from the item's detail screen. Linked notes open directly from the detail screen.

Creating a note: When a lecture's Lecture Notes or an assignment's Linked Note is empty, a Create button makes a new note, links it, and opens it in a new tab.

• Where: in a folder for each class (named by its code, or its name if it has no code) inside the Notes folder from Settings → Notes, or the top of the vault if that's blank.
• Name: from a pattern you can change. Lecture notes default to {code} L{n} {title}, for example "OT 5200 L02 Primeval History", and assignment notes to {code} {title}. The fill-ins are {code}, {class}, {n} (the lecture number, two digits), {title}, and {date}; for an assignment, {n} is its lecture's number.
• Template: pick a template note for lectures and one for assignments. Hold Course fills in {{title}}, {{code}}, {{class}}, {{n}}, {{date}}, and {{professor}}, and leaves everything else as written, including Templater code. Without a template, the note gets course, lecture, date, and type properties (for use in Bases) and a title heading.
• Name already taken: Hold Course asks whether to Use existing note (link the one that's there) or Start a new one, which leaves the old note where it is.

If you rename or move the Notes folder or a template in Obsidian, the setting follows it.

A linked Markdown note can also be measured: a reading's note for reading pace in words, and a Writing assignment's draft for its word goal.

Settings

Hold Course's settings are under Settings > Community plugins > Hold Course, on four tabs: Display, Coursework, Notes, and Export. Settings reopens on the tab you used last, until Obsidian restarts.

Display

Grayscale display mode — increases text contrast and size for e-ink displays (such as Boox tablets) or a phone or tablet set to grayscale, both of which wash out low-contrast text. Colored text — overdue dates, class names, assignment type labels — switches to darker shades of the same colors. Off by default; it isn't detected automatically, since the CSS feature meant to detect e-ink displays isn't implemented in the browser engine Obsidian uses.

Interface scale — a slider from 90% to 150%, in 10% steps. It scales the whole interface together — text, icons, and spacing — rather than just enlarging the type, which is what makes it useful on an e-ink tablet or in a narrow pane. Above 100% some control rows scroll sideways rather than shrink, so everything stays reachable instead of clipped. On a phone, rows of buttons wrap onto a second line instead.

This works on desktop and Android. It has no effect on iOS, which doesn't support the underlying CSS property — the setting is simply inert there rather than broken.

Open Today when Obsidian starts — on by default. Turn it off to open the Today sidebar only when you ask for it.

Coursework

Reading pace > Words per minute — your reading speed, used to turn word counts into minutes for readings measured in words. 225 by default; leave the box empty to use the default.

Grades — the grading scale used by every class that doesn't have its own: a letter and the minimum percent for it, one per row. Add or remove letters, or use Reset to default to go back to the A–F scale. See Grades.

Assignment types — your own assignment types, each with how many assignments use it, and buttons to rename or delete it. New types are added from the Type menu when adding or editing an assignment.

Exam types — your own exam types, each with how many exams use it, and buttons to rename or delete it. Exam, Midterm, Final, and Quiz are built in. New types are added from the Type menu when adding or editing an exam.

Notes

Notes folder, Lecture note name, Assignment note name, Lecture template, and Assignment template — where Create puts new lecture and assignment notes, what it names them, and what goes in them. See Linked Notes.

Syllabus folder — where exported syllabi and new syllabus notes are saved. Leave it blank for the top of the vault. See Syllabus.

Export

Export folder, the calendar file and its Include and Keep the calendar file up to date toggles, CSV, and Backup. See Export.

For Teachers

Hold Course is built around one person's own coursework, but several features suit planning a course you teach:

• Copy a class for each section or term. Dates move to the new start date in whole weeks, and statuses start over.
• Online classes drop the meeting fields when there's no live session.
• Your own assignment types — Lab, Homework, Presentation, Peer review — are set up once and shared by every class and section, and each one can be filtered on Assignments and Calendar.
• Syllabus export turns a class into a syllabus note — your description and policies, the reading list, grade weights, and a week-by-week schedule.
• Bulk add resources takes a whole reading list at once, pasted from your syllabus or a spreadsheet.
• Calendar export puts a term's lectures, assignments, and exams into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook.
• Note templates give every lecture a prep note in the same shape, named and filed for you.

What it doesn't do: grade weights and attendance are for your own grade, not a class roster, and each assignment has a single status — yours. Hold Course is a planning tool, not a gradebook, and doesn't track individual students.

Mobile

Hold Course runs on Obsidian Mobile. Every screen and form works on a phone, with layouts adjusted where the desktop arrangement didn't survive the narrower width — forms stack rather than crowd, wide tables scroll sideways rather than drop columns, and rows that can't fit on one line wrap instead of truncating.

A few things work differently by necessity:

• Card menus are always visible. On desktop, the Edit/Move/Delete menu on a class card appears on hover. A finger can't hover, so on mobile the menu is simply always shown.
• Modals can't be dragged on a phone. The drag bar is hidden there, since a phone modal is effectively full-screen and has nowhere to move to. Tablets keep it.
• No logo on a phone. The Hold Course name above the breadcrumb is hidden there, since Obsidian's header already shows it, so the breadcrumb gets the whole line. If it still doesn't fit, the semester name is shortened.
• Button rows wrap. When the buttons above a list (such as Bulk add and Add resource in the Library) don't fit across the screen, they go onto a second line. Sideways scrolling would compete with Obsidian's swipe to open the sidebars.
• Interface scale is worth a look on mobile — see Settings.

Data Storage

All plugin data is stored in data.json inside the Hold Course plugin folder. This file is created automatically on first use and holds all your semesters, classes, lectures, assignments, exams, and library resources. Back it up along with your vault.

The Export Hold Course data snapshot command copies data.json to a timestamped file in the same folder (hold-course-backup-2026-09-08-14-30-22.json) — a one-click version of that backup. Every run makes a new file and nothing is ever overwritten or pruned, so clearing out old snapshots is up to you.

The snapshot stays in the plugin folder, which Obsidian keeps out of sight. For a copy you can see and move, use Export backup (see Export): it writes the same data to a dated JSON file in your export folder.

Hold Course is a community plugin for Obsidian. Feedback and bug reports are welcome via the GitHub repository. Thanks to @fastermadman for testing on e-ink devices, reporting, and working on some of the issues that shaped mobile support.