Build a plain-English Canvas course manager

A non-developer educator used Claude Code to make a Canvas tool that handles course lookup, submissions, forums, announcements, and gradebook export.

Done with Claude Codeยท Intermediate

What they did
Over four months, they used Claude Code to turn a 200-line proof of concept into a Python MCP server built on FastMCP. It started by listing courses, then expanded into separate tools for assignments, discussion threads, announcements, and gradebook export. Claude Code handled most of the API wiring and refactoring, and a colleague later added group-management features.
How it went
The finished codebase grew to about 3,000 lines. The author says a weekly 45-minute check of submissions and participation now takes about 2 minutes. They also note that student data was anonymized at the source later on, so earlier screenshots came from before that change.
Tips
Start with simple read-only actions, like listing courses, before moving on to analytics. You also need Canvas API access, and the setup is said to take about 15 minutes.

Try it yourself with Claude Code

Help me build a small tool for [LMS name] that talks to its API with my token stored in [environment variable]. Begin with read-only features: list my courses, show missing submissions in [course], and summarize recent discussion activity. After each step, explain what you changed. Before you add anything that sends, posts, schedules, submits, deletes, or changes data, show me the exact action and wait for my approval. If the first version works, add gradebook export to [CSV or other format] and keep the code organized into small modules.

Fill in the [brackets]. Agents can make mistakes, so review anything before it is sent, paid or deleted.

Read the original on chatwithgpt.substack.com โ†—

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