Common questions
What it does, what it keeps, and what happens when Skyward changes.
Getting started
Who can use Skylight?
Students with a Plano ISD Skyward (Qmlativ) login. That is the only district and the only sign-in system it supports, so a Skyward account from anywhere else won't work.
Do I have to make an account?
No. Guest mode signs you in to Skyward, shows your grades and saves nothing. An account is worth it if you would rather not retype your Skyward login every time, want your grades kept between visits, or want to hear about changes.
Do I sign in with an email address?
No. You sign in with a Skylight username, which starts out as your Skyward username. There is no email address anywhere and nothing to verify.
A working Skyward login proves the account instead. Signing up signs in to Skyward once and gives up if that fails. It also means one Skylight account per student.
I forgot my Skylight password.
Sign in to Skyward again from the reset page. Skylight recognises the student behind that login and lets you set a new password. No email round-trip, because there is no email.
Your data key came from the password you forgot, so unless background alerts are on, the old encrypted copy cannot be opened. It gets thrown away and rebuilt from Skyward.
Does it cost anything?
No. There is nothing to pay for and no payment details are collected.
Grades and math
Are these my real grades?
They come from your real Skyward account, but Skylight works them out again from your assignments and category weights instead of reprinting a number. That is what makes what-if possible. Skyward is still the official record, so check it for anything that counts.
What is the what-if calculator?
Change a score, add an assignment that has not happened yet, or delete one, and the grade recalculates against the real category weights. There is also a solver for the other question: what do I need on the next one to end up where I want?
Both run in your browser. Nothing you try is sent anywhere.
Is the GPA official?
No. Ranked, cumulative and unweighted GPA are estimates worked out from configured rules. They are not an official transcript or official class rank.
What does it show per class?
Both nine-week terms, the semester exam and the semester grade, assignments grouped by weighted category, and the period number. Attendance, your schedule and academic history are in there too.
Why did my dashboard look empty for a day?
Right after a new semester starts, Skyward can take a day or so to publish your new classes, so for a while there is nothing to show. Skylight says the new semester is loading instead of leaving a blank page, and fills in by itself once Skyward has the data.
Nothing was lost, and you do not get a flood of alerts for the whole new term.
Is there a class rank or percentile?
No. Skyward does not expose a real class rank, only the GPA it works out, and Skylight has no honest way to place you among students it cannot see. A percentile built from an anonymous pool would be misleading at any size this app will reach, and it would mean collecting data Skylight does not collect.
The ranked GPA is still there, so you can set it next to whatever your counsellor tells you.
Notifications
How do phone notifications work?
Through Web Push, so they arrive with the app closed. Install Skylight to your home screen and allow notifications. There is nothing to download from an app store.
Each message is encrypted to your device, so the push service relaying it cannot read it.
What do they say?
The course, what happened, and that class grade before and after: AP Calculus BC, 100 on Unit 2 Exam, 90.3 to 91.5. The same summaries stack up in your activity feed.
How often does it check?
Every 15 minutes, and only if you turn background alerts on. It is off by default because it is the setting that lets the server open your data while you are not there. The security page spells out what that costs.
Privacy and safety
Is my Skyward password safe?
It is used for one thing: signing in to Skyward as you. In guest mode it is never stored. With an account it is encrypted with a key that comes from your Skylight password, which the server does not keep, so it can only read your data while you are signed in.
What is the catch with background alerts?
To check your grades while you are asleep, the server has to open your vault without you, so it keeps a second copy of your data key locked with a server secret. Anyone who got hold of both the database and that secret could read the Skyward login.
That is weaker than leaving them off, which is why the setting starts off, says so before you switch it on, and can be switched back.
Can I delete everything?
Yes. Settings has a Delete everything button that removes every row Skylight holds about you: account, keys, encrypted blobs, settings, sessions and audit log. Nothing is kept for later.
What is the AI overview?
An optional summary of how your classes are going. It is sent your course names and grades, no name and no login, it runs on Cloudflare Workers AI, and nothing is stored. Leave it off and it never runs.
The project
Is this made by the school, or by Skyward?
No. Skylight is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Skyward, Inc., Qmlativ, or Plano ISD.
Will it break?
Probably, at some point. Skylight reads Skyward's own website, so a change there can stop it working until someone updates it. It is unofficial software with no guarantee it will be up.
What is it built with?
A TypeScript core holding the Skyward integration and the grade math, a SvelteKit front end, and Cloudflare for hosting, the database and the optional AI overview. Licensed PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0.
Try it on your own grades
Sign in with your Skyward login, or use guest mode, which saves nothing.