IlliniClaw - WhatsApp AI Teaching Assistant Blueprint

Open architecture spec for WhatsApp AI teaching assistants. Feed it to any AI coding agent and get a working bot customized for your course. Currently being tested in a live BADM 554 deployment at Gies.

36 Active Students

109+ Sessions & Counting

97+ Hours Engagement

View Spec on GitHub

How It Works

Feed the spec to an AI coding agent. It builds the entire system for your course.

Student Q&A via WhatsApp

Students join their course on WhatsApp and ask questions anytime. AI answers using RAG over course materials—lecture notes, assignments, textbooks—with conversation context maintained across 2-hour sessions.

Instant answers grounded in course materials
Context-aware conversations with session memory
Canvas LMS integration for real-time course data

Professor Dashboard

A web dashboard lets professors manage their courses, send broadcasts, and create drip campaigns. JWT authentication ensures only authorized faculty can access course controls.

Course management and student enrollment
Broadcast messaging to all enrolled students
30 AI calls/hour rate limiting per professor

Drip Campaigns

Professors schedule multi-message drip campaigns to deliver content over time—test review materials, weekly study guides, or concept reinforcement.

Scheduled multi-message sequences
Customizable per course and topic
3 campaigns deployed so far, more being added

Technical Architecture

The spec produces a production-ready system with these components

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Backend

Node.js 20+ with ES Modules
Express web framework
PostgreSQL database
PM2 process management

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AI System

Claude or OpenAI for student Q&A
RAG over course materials
2-hour conversation session windows
Customizable persona per course

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WhatsApp Business API integration
Canvas LMS integration
Drip campaign scheduler
Broadcast messaging

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Security

JWT authentication (7-day expiry)
bcrypt password hashing (12 rounds)
VPN-ready dashboard access
Rate limiting (30 AI calls/hour)

BADM 554 Experiment

IlliniClaw is being actively tested with a live deployment for BADM 554 at Gies

Ongoing Deployment

The BADM 554 bot is actively serving 36 students in Enterprise Database Management, with 97+ hours of engagement across 109+ sessions so far and growing as the semester continues.

Drip Campaigns

Three drip campaigns deployed so far: Test 1 review (12 messages), Week 7 content (6 messages), and Week 8 content (10 messages). More campaigns are being added as the course progresses.

Open Spec, Private Code

The BADM 554 bot is a private implementation. The IlliniClaw spec is the open-source blueprint that lets anyone replicate the system for their own course.