The core tools cover everyday Canvas data you reach for most often: today’s date, enrolled courses, fuzzy course lookup, announcements, and calendar events. Every other tool builds on the course IDs these tools surface.
get_today Returns today’s date in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD). Use this when you need a reliable current date without relying on client-side clocks or LLM knowledge cutoffs.
No parameters. Response Today’s date in ISO 8601 format, e.g. "2025-09-01".
Example canvas tool run get_today --args '{}'
{ "today" : "2025-09-01" }
list_courses Lists Canvas courses for the authenticated user. By default returns only starred (favorite) courses.
Parameters When true, returns only courses the user has starred in Canvas. Set to false to include all active enrollments. Defaults to true.
Filter courses by name or course code. Case-insensitive substring match performed server-side.
Maximum number of courses to return. Must be between 1 and 300. Defaults to 50.
Response Either "favorites" (when favorites_only is true) or "active-enrollments".
Number of courses returned.
Show Course object fields
Short course code, e.g. "CMSC131".
Enrollment term name, e.g. "Fall 2025".
Workflow state, e.g. "available" or "completed".
Example canvas tool run list_courses --args '{"favorites_only": true, "limit": 10}'
{ "source" : "favorites" , "count" : 2 , "courses" : [ { "id" : "112233" , "name" : "Introduction to Algorithms" , "course_code" : "CMSC351" , "term_name" : "Fall 2025" , "state" : "available" } ] }
resolve_course Fuzzy-matches a natural-language query against the user’s Canvas courses and returns ranked matches. Useful when you have a partial course name or code and need to discover the right course_id before calling other tools.
Parameters The search string to match against course names and course codes. Supports partial strings and space-separated tokens.
When true, searches only starred courses. Set to false to search all active enrollments. Defaults to true.
Maximum number of matches to return. Must be between 1 and 20. Defaults to 5.
Response Number of matches found above the relevance threshold.
Relevance score between 0.0 and 1.0. Higher is a closer match.
Example canvas tool run resolve_course --args '{"query": "algorithms", "limit": 3}'
{ "count" : 1 , "matches" : [ { "id" : "112233" , "name" : "Introduction to Algorithms" , "course_code" : "CMSC351" , "term_name" : "Fall 2025" , "state" : "available" , "score" : 0.86 } ] }
list_announcements Lists announcements for one or more courses. Results are filtered to active announcements by default and can be scoped to a date range.
Parameters Array of Canvas course IDs to fetch announcements for. At least one ID is required.
ISO datetime string. Only return announcements posted on or after this date, e.g. "2025-09-01T00:00:00Z".
ISO datetime string. Only return announcements posted on or before this date.
When true, returns only currently active announcements. Defaults to true.
Maximum number of announcements to return. Must be between 1 and 300. Defaults to 100.
Response The course IDs that were queried.
Number of announcements returned.
Show Announcement object fields
ISO datetime the announcement was posted.
Canvas context code identifying the course, e.g. "course_112233".
Direct URL to the announcement in Canvas.
Full announcement body (HTML).
Example canvas tool run list_announcements --args '{"course_ids": ["112233", "445566"], "start_date": "2025-09-01T00:00:00Z", "limit": 20}'
list_calendar_events Lists calendar events and assignment due dates across one or more courses. Can be filtered by event type and date range.
Parameters Array of Canvas course IDs to scope the calendar query. When omitted, Canvas returns events across all enrolled courses.
Filter by event type. Allowed values: "event", "assignment", "both".
ISO datetime string. Only return events starting on or after this date.
ISO datetime string. Only return events ending on or before this date.
When true, returns all events regardless of date. Omit to use Canvas default behavior.
Maximum number of events to return. Must be between 1 and 300. Defaults to 100.
Response The course IDs that were queried.
Number of events returned.
Event or assignment title.
Canvas context code, e.g. "course_112233".
ISO datetime the event starts (or assignment is due).
ISO datetime the event ends.
Whether this is an all-day event.
Direct URL to the event in Canvas.
Example canvas tool run list_calendar_events --args '{"course_ids": ["112233"], "type": "assignment", "start_date": "2025-09-01T00:00:00Z", "end_date": "2025-12-15T23:59:59Z"}'
