canvaslms: A CLI to Canvas LMS.
This program provides a command-line interface for Canvas. The command
is canvaslms and it has several subcommands in the same style as Git.
canvaslms provides output in a format useful for POSIX tools, this
makes automating tasks much easier.
Getting started
Start by login to your Canvas server
pipx install canvaslms
canvaslms login
Then let the built-in tutorials walk you through the commands against your own courses. Each step opens a shell, tells you what to type, and checks what you did; progress is saved between runs.
canvaslms tutorial list
canvaslms tutorial run getting-started
The first tutorial covers logging in and listing courses and users. Later
ones cover assignments and grading, course content, and letting a coding
agent such as Claude Code run canvaslms for you through the skills in
dbosk/claude-skills.
You can also use the package directly from Python.
This lets scripts and other CLI tools import canvaslms and reuse the same
authentication, configuration, and encrypted cache as the canvaslms
command-line tool.
The top-level canvaslms.canvas object is lazy-loaded, restored from the same
encrypted cache as the CLI, and saved automatically at process exit.
import canvaslms
for course in canvaslms.canvas.get_courses():
print(course.name)
Let's consider how to grade students logging into the student-shell SSH server. We store the list of students' Canvas and KTH IDs in a file.
canvaslms users -sc DD1301 | cut -f 1,2 > students.csv
Then we check who has logged into student-shell.
ssh student-shell.sys.kth.se last | cut -f 1 -d " " | sort | uniq \
> logged-in.csv
Finally, we check who of our students logged in.
We can set their grade to P and add the comment "Well done!" in
Canvas. We set the grades for the two assignments whose titles match the
regular expression (Preparing the terminal|The terminal).
for s in $(cut -f 2 students.csv); do
grep $s logged-in.csv && \
canvaslms grade -c DD1301 -a "(Preparing the terminal|The terminal)" \
-u $(grep $s students.csv | cut -f 1) \
-g P -m "Well done!"
done
Analyzing Quiz/Survey Results
The quizzes analyse command helps you analyze Canvas quiz or survey evaluation data.
Download the Student Analysis Report CSV from Canvas and run:
# Markdown output (default, rendered with rich)
canvaslms quizzes analyse --csv survey_results.csv
# LaTeX output (for PDF compilation)
canvaslms quizzes analyse --csv survey_results.csv --format latex > report.tex
This will provide:
- Statistical summaries for quantitative questions (ratings, multiple choice)
- Proper handling of multi-select questions (comma-separated options)
- All individual responses for qualitative questions (free text)
- AI-generated summaries of qualitative responses (requires
llm, install withcanvaslms[llm])
If you installed with the [llm] extra, configure your API keys:
llm keys set openai # or another provider
Managing Quiz Content
Quizzes written elsewhere, for example with text2qti, can be imported as
QTI 1.2 packages. First list your courses and their IDs, then replace 12345
below with your course ID to upload a generated Classic quiz. Run the last
command after regenerating the ZIP to replace its questions. Replacing keeps
the quiz's ID and settings, requires an unpublished quiz without student
attempts, and writes a backup that quizzes edit -f can restore.
canvaslms courses --all --id
quiz_id=$(canvaslms quizzes import -c '^12345$' -f quiz.qti.zip --id-only)
canvaslms quizzes import -c '^12345$' -f quiz.qti.zip -a "^$quiz_id$" --replace-items
Add --type new to import as a New Quiz instead (fresh imports only), and
canvaslms quizzes list -c '^12345$' -i to list quizzes with their IDs.
View and edit quiz content directly from the command line:
# View quiz questions rendered as markdown
canvaslms quizzes view -c "Course" -a "Quiz Name"
# Edit quiz content interactively
canvaslms quizzes edit -c "Course" -a "Quiz Name"
# Export quiz items for backup or migration
canvaslms quizzes items export -c "Course" -a "Quiz Name" --importable
# Add questions to a quiz bank (use --example to see question formats)
canvaslms quizzes items add -c "Course" -a "Quiz Name" --example
Editing Announcements and Discussions
Edit existing announcements using the same workflow as pages:
# Edit interactively (opens in editor)
canvaslms discussions edit -c "Course" -t "Announcement Title"
# Edit from a markdown file with YAML front matter
canvaslms discussions edit -c "Course" -t "Announcement Title" -f announcement.md
Installation
Install the PyPI package using pip or pipx:
# Basic installation (Python 3.10+)
python3 -m pip install canvaslms
# or
pipx install canvaslms # recommended
# With optional LLM support for AI summaries (Python 3.10+)
python3 -m pip install canvaslms[llm]
# or
pipx install canvaslms[llm] # recommended
The [llm] extra includes the llm package and various LLM provider plugins (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Azure) for AI-powered features like quiz analysis summaries.
The Python API uses the same credential sources as the command-line tool:
system keyring, CANVAS_SERVER/CANVAS_TOKEN, or the config file.
Some subcommands use pandoc, so you will likely have to install
pandoc on your system manually.
Development
This project uses literate programming with noweb.
The source code is written in .nw files which combine documentation and code.
GitHub Copilot Setup
This repository includes GitHub Copilot configuration files:
.github/copilot-instructions.md: Project context and coding guidelines.copilotignore: Files to exclude from Copilot context
The configuration helps Copilot understand the literate programming approach, Canvas LMS domain, and project-specific patterns.
1 maintainer
Metadata
1 maintainer
Release files for canvaslms 6.22
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Source distribution (sdist)
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Total release size: 882.9 kB
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