canvas-course-builder

canvas-course-builder is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp. It costs 64 tokens per session (1,578 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A tool for building course structures in Canvas, a learning-management system used to organize online classes. It can populate an existing course with modules, pages, assignments, and discussions from a description, template, or another course.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to scaffold a new course structure, create modules and activities in bulk, load a course template, or copy the structure of one existing Canvas course into another.
Why use it?
It removes repetitive setup work when a course has many sections or follows an existing structure. It keeps the course content organized in Canvas while requiring an existing target course and suitable access.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to scaffold a new course structure, create modules and activities in bulk, load a course template, or copy the structure of one existing Canvas course into another.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp/canvas-course-builder
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp --skill canvas-course-builder
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for canvas-course-builder

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp/canvas-course-builder.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp/canvas-course-builder)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp/canvas-course-builder"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp/canvas-course-builder.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 64 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,578 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 1 finding, up to medium

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • medium Excessive Agency · line 89
    Skill enables autonomous high-impact decisions without human-in-the-loop verification. Critical operations (destructive commands, financial transactions, data deletion) should require explicit user confirmation.
    Fix: Add human-in-the-loop confirmation for destructive, irreversible, or high-impact operations. Never auto-execute commands that modify files, send data, or alter system state.
How audits are shown
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00064 $0.01578
Opus 5 $0.00032 $0.00789
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00316
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00158

Measured 8d ago against content hash 8b91817cf8b2, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

canvas-course-builder scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/canvas-course-builder/SKILL.md · 196 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 196 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Canvas Course Builder

Build complete Canvas course structures from a natural language description, a JSON template, or by cloning an existing course. Creates modules with pages, assignments, discussions, and proper organization in one workflow.

Prerequisites

  • Canvas MCP server must be running and connected.
  • Authenticated user must have instructor or designer role in the target course.
  • Target course must already exist in Canvas (this skill populates it, does not create the course itself).

Modes

This skill operates in three modes:

Mode 1: Build from Spec (default)

The user describes the course structure in natural language or provides a structured spec.

Mode 2: Build from Template

Load a saved JSON template to scaffold a course.

Mode 3: Clone from Existing Course

Read the structure of Course A and replicate it into Course B.

Steps

1. Determine Mode and Gather Input

Ask the user how they want to build:

How would you like to build the course structure?

  1. Describe it -- Tell me the structure (e.g., "15 weeks, each with an overview page, assignment, and discussion")
  2. From template -- Load a saved template file
  3. Clone another course -- Copy structure from an existing course

For Mode 1 (Spec): Ask for:

  • Target course (code or ID)
  • Number of modules/weeks/units
  • Module naming pattern (e.g., "Week N: [Topic]")
  • Standard items per module (overview page, assignment, discussion, etc.)
  • Any module-specific variations (midterm week, final project, etc.)

For Mode 2 (Template): Ask for the template file path. Parse the JSON template.

For Mode 3 (Clone): Ask for:

  • Source course (code or ID)
  • Target course (code or ID)
  • Call get_course_structure(source_course) to read the full structure

2. Generate Structure Preview

Build a preview of what will be created and present it to the user:

## Course Build Plan: [Course Name]

### Structure: 15 modules x 4 items each = 60 items total

| Module | Page | Assignment | Discussion | SubHeader |
|--------|------|------------|------------|-----------|
| Week 1: Introduction | Overview | HW 1 (10 pts) | Week 1 Forum | Materials |
| Week 2: Fundamentals | Overview | HW 2 (10 pts) | Week 2 Forum | Materials |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Week 14: Review | Overview | -- | Review Forum | Materials |
| Week 15: Final | Overview | Final Project (100 pts) | -- | Materials |

### Items to create:
- 15 modules
- 15 overview pages
- 14 assignments
- 14 discussion topics
- 15 subheaders
- Total: 73 Canvas objects

Shall I proceed?

Read the full file on GitHub · 196 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 196 lines · 64 tokens per session scan A 8b91817cf8b2

Subscribe to this mod's changes

canvas-course-builder is a skill published in the GitHub repository vishalsachdev/canvas-mcp (231 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 64 tokens to every session and 1,578 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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