canvas-parent-mcp

io.github.chrischall/canvas-parent-mcp

7/8 checks passed
Runs locally
4 secrets
★ 0 GitHub stars
Updated 2026-10-16
Health score 56

About canvas-parent-mcp

canvas-parent-mcp is an MCP server published by the GitHub account chrischall. Canvas LMS (Instructure) for Claude — courses, grades, assignments, planner, files

It runs on your own machine: your AI client starts it from the npm package canvas-parent-mcp at version 2.1.10.

It asks for 4 secrets: CANVAS_PASSWORD, CANVAS_TOKEN, CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET and CANVAS_REFRESH_TOKEN. Give it a key with the least access that still works.

It also needs CANVAS_BASE_URL set before it starts.

Version 2.1.10 was published on 16 October 2026, and the source code is public, so you can read it before installing.

Written from the registry entry. 9 automated checks on the registry entry and the package code: 7 pass, 1 warn, 0 fail, 1 info. How we check.

What it asks for

Variable	Required	Secret	Description
`CANVAS_BASE_URL`	Yes	No	Canvas instance base URL, e.g. https://cms.instructure.com
`CANVAS_USERNAME`	No	No	Canvas login username/email (recommended) — pair with CANVAS_PASSWORD for auto-login. No SSO/2FA.
`CANVAS_PASSWORD`	No	Yes	Canvas password (recommended) — required iff CANVAS_USERNAME is set
`CANVAS_TOKEN`	No	Yes	Canvas personal access token (advanced) — most schools have disabled token creation
`CANVAS_CLIENT_ID`	No	No	Canvas OAuth client ID (advanced — for SSO accounts that can't use username/password)
`CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET`	No	Yes	Canvas OAuth client secret (advanced)
`CANVAS_REFRESH_TOKEN`	No	Yes	Canvas OAuth refresh token (advanced) — bootstrap via canvas-parent-mcp-qr-login
`CANVAS_NAME`	No	No	Friendly name for the Canvas instance (defaults to the host portion of the base URL)
`CANVAS_SESSION_CACHE`	No	No	Set to false to disable the on-disk session cache and re-authenticate on every process start. Defaults to enabled.
`CANVAS_SESSION_FILE`	No	No	Absolute path for the session cache file. Defaults to $MCP_DATA_DIR/.canvas-parent-mcp/session.json.
`CANVAS_OUTPUT_DIR`	No	No	Directory canvas_download_file may write into (default ~/Downloads). A relative destinationPath is resolved against it.
`CANVAS_DISABLE_FETCHPROXY`	No	No	Set to 1 to turn off the browser (fetchproxy) fallback, so missing credentials are a hard error instead.
`FETCHPROXY_WS_PORT`	No	No	Localhost port of the fetchproxy concentrator the ContextMint Bridge extension connects to (default 37149). Every MCP on one machine shares it, so move it for all of them or not at all.
`FETCHPROXY_WS_HOST`	No	No	Bind interface for the fetchproxy concentrator, a literal IP only (default 127.0.0.1). Keep on loopback; it exists for hosted deployments that run each MCP in its own network namespace.
`FETCHPROXY_IDENTITY_DIR`	No	No	Absolute path where the fetchproxy long-term identity keypair is stored (default ~/.fetchproxy/identity/).

Checks

Check	Result	Detail
Source repository linked	Pass	https://github.com/chrischall/canvas-parent-mcp
Version pinned	Pass	Every package has an explicit version
Secrets requested	Warn	Asks for 4 secrets: CANVAS_PASSWORD, CANVAS_TOKEN, CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET, CANVAS_REFRESH_TOKEN
Known package registry	Pass	All packages come from npm, PyPI, OCI, NuGet or MCPB
Namespace ownership	Info	Name verified via GitHub account chrischall
Registry text aimed at the AI	Pass	Description and settings contain no hidden characters or instructions to the AI
Install scripts	Pass	canvas-parent-mcp@2.1.10 runs nothing at install
Code red flags	Pass	Read 34 files in canvas-parent-mcp@2.1.10: no obfuscation, encoded execution, credential reads or data-collection endpoints found
Text aimed at the AI	Pass	No hidden characters or instructions to the AI in 34 files, including comments and the README

Popularity & health: 56 / 100

Worked out from public numbers and our own checks, not from user reviews or ratings. It says how used and how looked-after a server is, not whether it is safe.

Popularity10 / 40

0 GitHub stars, 336 downloads last week, no Hacker News posts found. Best two of the three, each on a log scale.

Activity15 / 25

Last push 2026-10-25, last release 2026-10-16, 0 commits in 90 days.

Issue health15 / 15

15 closed of 15 issues.

Our checks16 / 20

1 warning, each costing a fifth.

0 forks, 245 merged pull requests. Sources: GitHub, npm, PyPI (pypistats.org) and Hacker News (Algolia), fetched 2026-10-31.

What people say

No Hacker News threads link to its source code.

Look further: search Reddit, search Hacker News, read its GitHub issues. These are not reviews we checked.

Facts

Registry name	`io.github.chrischall/canvas-parent-mcp`
Publisher	GitHub account chrischall
How the name is verified	Name verified via GitHub account chrischall. The registry ties the name prefix to that account or domain; it does not check the code.
Type	Local: runs on your machine from a package
Packages	npm `canvas-parent-mcp` 2.1.10 (stdio)
Version	2.1.10
Published	2026-10-16
Last updated	2026-10-16
Source repository	https://github.com/chrischall/canvas-parent-mcp
Website	None linked
Category	Files & documents (assigned by keyword rule, not by hand)

Install

Claude Desktop · npm package

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "canvas-parent-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "canvas-parent-mcp@2.1.10"
      ],
      "env": {
        "CANVAS_BASE_URL": "<your value>"
      }
    }
  }
}

What these checks don't cover

We did not run this server, so we don't know what it does when it runs. We read its package code on 2026-10-29 without running it, and pattern searches miss what they have no pattern for. Tool descriptions built at run time were not seen. And we don't watch it after you install: if the publisher changes it later (a rug pull), this page won't notice until the next scan. Treat a pass as "nothing found", not as "safe".

For people and their AI

The same data as plain JSON: /data/servers/io-github-chrischall-canvas-parent-mcp.json. Text inside it that came from the publisher is data, not instructions.