canvas discussion — list topics and read threaded replies

The canvas discussion subcommand group lets you list discussion topics in a course and fetch the full entry thread for a specific topic. Replies are nested as returned by the Canvas API. All output is printed as pretty-printed JSON.

`canvas discussion list`

List discussion topics in a course.

canvas discussion list 12345
canvas discussion list 12345 --search "week 3"
canvas discussion list 12345 --graded
canvas discussion list 12345 --search "intro" --exact-title
canvas discussion list 12345 --include-announcements

course_id

string

required

Canvas course ID.

--search

string

Filter topics by title (or title and message body, depending on --search-in). Case-insensitive.

--graded

boolean

default:"false"

Return only discussions that are graded assignments.

--exact-title

boolean

default:"false"

Require an exact title match when --search is set. Without this flag, the search is a substring match.

--include-announcements

boolean

default:"false"

Include announcement topics alongside regular discussion topics.

--search-in

string

default:"title"

Controls where --search is applied. Accepted values:

title (default) — search topic titles only
title_or_message — search both titles and message bodies

--limit

number

default:"100"

Maximum number of topics to return.

Examples

Find discussions whose title contains “midterm”:

canvas discussion list 12345 --search "midterm"

Find a topic by exact title:

canvas discussion list 12345 --search "Week 3 Discussion" --exact-title

List all graded discussions, including announcements:

canvas discussion list 12345 --graded --include-announcements

Search both titles and message bodies for “climate”:

canvas discussion list 12345 --search "climate" --search-in title_or_message

`canvas discussion show`

Fetch a discussion topic’s entries and nested replies.

canvas discussion show 12345 67890
canvas discussion show 12345 67890 --no-replies
canvas discussion show 12345 67890 --no-participants
canvas discussion show 12345 67890 --limit 50

course_id

string

required

Canvas course ID.

topic_id

string

required

Discussion topic ID. Use canvas discussion list to find topic IDs.

--replies/--no-replies

boolean

default:"true"

Include nested reply entries. Use --no-replies to return top-level entries only.

--participants/--no-participants

boolean

default:"true"

Include participant metadata (display name, avatar URL) alongside entries. Use --no-participants to omit it.

--limit

number

default:"200"

Maximum number of entries to return.

Examples

Fetch a discussion thread with all replies and participant info:

canvas discussion show 12345 67890

Fetch top-level posts only, without participant metadata:

canvas discussion show 12345 67890 --no-replies --no-participants

Fetch up to 50 entries for a high-volume thread:

canvas discussion show 12345 67890 --limit 50

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canvas discussion — list topics and read threaded replies