Canvas MCP

MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for Canvas LMS. Exposes Canvas courses, assignments, modules, pages, files, grades, and submissions as tools for AI agents.

Tools

Tool	Description
list_courses	List all active courses
get_course	Course details, optionally with syllabus
list_modules	Modules with items (pages, files, assignments)
list_assignments	All assignments with due dates and points
get_assignment	Full assignment with description + rubric
submit_url	Submit a URL to an assignment
submit_text	Submit text to an assignment
list_pages	List course pages
get_page	Get page content as plain text
get_file	File metadata and download URL
list_files	List all files (may 403 on some instances)
list_announcements	Course announcements
list_discussions	Discussion topics
list_groups	Groups in a course
list_group_members	Members of a group
my_grades	Your graded submissions with rubric feedback
get_submission	Your submission for a specific assignment
upcoming_events	Upcoming calendar events
todo_items	Canvas TODO items
whoami	Authenticated user profile

Resources

URI	Description
canvas://courses	All active courses as JSON
canvas://todo	Current TODO items as JSON

Setup

Environment Variables

export CANVAS_API_TOKEN="your-canvas-token"
export CANVAS_BASE_URL="https://your-institution.instructure.com"

Generate a token at: <your-canvas-url>/profile/settings → + New Access Token

Install

pip install -e .

Run

canvas-mcp              # stdio transport (for MCP clients)

Add to Hermes config.yaml

mcp_servers:
  canvas:
    command: canvas-mcp
    env:
      CANVAS_API_TOKEN: "your-token"
      CANVAS_BASE_URL: "https://psu.instructure.com"

Add to Claude Desktop

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "canvas": {
      "command": "canvas-mcp",
      "env": {
        "CANVAS_API_TOKEN": "your-token",
        "CANVAS_BASE_URL": "https://psu.instructure.com"
      }
    }
  }
}

Design Decisions

• No stdout output from tools — tools return structured dicts/lists only, safe for coding agents
• HTML is stripped — all Canvas HTML content is converted to readable plain text
• Responses are slimmed — only relevant fields returned, no noise
• Pagination handled — follows Canvas Link headers automatically (up to 10 pages)
• Graceful 403 handling — list_files returns an error dict with a hint instead of crashing
• Client cleanup — every tool call opens and closes its own client connection

Testing

pip install pytest pytest-asyncio
pytest -v

Tests use a MockTransport that intercepts HTTP at the httpx layer — no real Canvas calls. Three test files:

• test_client.py — Canvas API client unit tests
• test_server.py — tool functions, HTML stripping, slimming helpers
• test_integration.py — full pipeline: tool → client → mock HTTP → structured response

License

MIT