Canvas

Canvas is Instructure's open-source learning management system (LMS) used by K-12, higher education, and corporate training organizations to deliver courses, assessments, and learner communication. Canvas exposes a comprehensive REST API and a GraphQL endpoint for reading and modifying courses, assignments, quizzes, grades, users, enrollments, content, and account administration, and it integrates with external tools through LTI, Caliper, and live event streams.

Canvas publishes 2 APIs on the APIs.io network: LMS REST API and Courses API. Tagged areas include Education, EdTech, GraphQL, Learning Management System, and LMS.

The Canvas catalog on APIs.io includes 1 event-driven AsyncAPI specification.

Canvas’ developer surface includes authentication, documentation, engineering blog, changelog, sandbox, CLI, API reference, and 45 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

73.7/100 exemplar ▬ flat Agent 40/100 agent ready open core · AGPL-3.0 Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

AccessFreemiumSelf serve⚡ Free to try

145 APIs

Education EdTech GraphQL Learning Management System LMS LTI Open-Source REST

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-09-08 · rubric v0.20.0

Composite quality — 73.7/100 · exemplar

Contract Quality 4.0 / 16

Developer Ergonomics 10.5 / 13

Access Clarity 11.6 / 13

Operational Transparency 6.9 / 8

Contract Governance 1.4 / 8

Discoverability 5.3 / 7

Regulatory Posture 12.8 / 15

Open Source Surface 7.5 / 10

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 3.3 / 10

Agent readiness — 40/100 · agent ready

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 6 / 6

Agent Skills 5 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 4 / 4

Delegated User Identity 6 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Education & Research regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Open Source Surface applies to this provider. This product is open source and we read its repository directly, so Open Source Surface carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from what the repository actually publishes — a security policy, a contribution guide, a release history, a code of conduct — read live from the provider rather than inferred from our own catalog pointers. This facet adds; nothing was taken away to make room for it. An open-source project is not excused from the commercial facets, because exemption would strip it of the points it does earn. If we have the wrong repository, or this product is not open source, say so on your provider repo and we will drop the facet rather than have you publish against it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 65 points between them, because both conditional facets apply and carry 35 points together. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 65% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/canvas: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

APIs 4

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Canvas LMS REST API

The Canvas LMS REST API provides programmatic access to courses, assignments, quizzes, grades, users, enrollments, accounts, discussions, files, modules, rubrics, submissions, S...

Canvas LMS GraphQL API

The Canvas LMS GraphQL API is an alternative to the REST API that lets clients request exactly the fields they need across Canvas resources in a single request. It is well suite...

Canvas LTI Integrations

Canvas supports Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI 1.1 and LTI 1.3 / Advantage) for embedding external tools, assignments, and content into courses with deep linking, grade pa...

Canvas Courses API

The Courses resource of the Canvas LMS REST API — 31 operations covering course creation, settings, users and enrollment counts, course copy, blueprint associations, effective d...

Open Collections 3

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

API Collection

OPEN COLLECTION

Canvas LMS REST API ( subset) Courses API

OPEN COLLECTION

Canvas LMS REST API (Courses subset)

OPEN COLLECTION

GraphQL 1

GraphQL schemas published by this provider.

Canvas GraphQL API

The Canvas LMS GraphQL API is an alternative to the REST API that lets clients request exactly the fields they need across Canvas resources in a single request. It is well suite...

GRAPHQL

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Canvas Plans Pricing

1 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Canvas Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Canvas Finops

FINOPS

Event Specifications 1

AsyncAPI definitions for this provider's event-driven and streaming APIs.

Canvas Live Events Webhooks

ASYNCAPI

Security Posture 4

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Canvas Authentication

http/oauth2 · 2 schemes

SECURITY

Canvas Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Canvas Vulnerability Disclosure

security.txt · contact published

SECURITY

Canvas Trust Center

SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, PCI DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP, GDPR, CSA STAR

SECURITY

Scopes 1

OAuth scopes governing access to this provider's APIs.

Canvas Scopes

1117 scopes · authorizationCode

1117 scopes

SCOPES

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Canvas Agentic Access

1148 operations · 566 acting · 29 human-in-the-loop

1148 operations · 566 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 4

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Sandbox

DeveloperPortal

GettingStarted

SignUp

Documentation 3

Reference material describing how the API behaves

ContributionGuide

ContributionGuide

Documentation

Documentation

APIReference

APIReference

Agent Surfaces 5

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

WellKnown

LLMsTxt

AgentSkill

X-MCPServerCandidate

X-MCPServerCandidate

Design & Contract 7

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conformance

ErrorCatalog

Lifecycle

Conventions

Components

DataModel

Webhooks

Scroll for all 7

Build 7

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

CodeOfConduct

CodeOfConduct

GitHubOrganization

GitHubRepository

Packages

SDKs

ToolCrosswalk

CLI

Scroll for all 7

Access & Security 9

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

OAuthScopes

OAuthScopes

SecurityPolicy

SecurityPolicy

TrustCenter

TrustCenter

VulnerabilityDisclosure

VulnerabilityDisclosure

DomainSecurity

Authentication

SecurityTxt

Compliance

Security

Scroll for all 9

Operate 7

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

IssueTracker

StatusPage

Community

Deprecation

ChangeLog

RateLimits

Support

Scroll for all 7

Commercial 5

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License

PrivacyPolicy

TermsOfService

Plans

Pricing

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Overlay

Overlay

Overlay

Overlay

Source (apis.yml)

aid: canvas
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/canvas/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: Canvas
description: Canvas is Instructure's open-source learning management system (LMS) used by K-12, higher education, and corporate
  training organizations to deliver courses, assessments, and learner communication. Canvas exposes a comprehensive REST API
  and a GraphQL endpoint for reading and modifying courses, assignments, quizzes, grades, users, enrollments, content, and
  account administration, and it integrates with external tools through LTI, Caliper, and live event streams.
type: Index
kind: company
deliveryModel:
  model: open-core
  license: AGPL-3.0
  open_source: true
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Open core · an OSS project plus a commercial hosted product
  confidence: high
  source:
  - license
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: true
  public: false
  label: Freemium · Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-09-03'
  method: derived
position: Consuming
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/canvas.png
tags:
- Education
- EdTech
- GraphQL
- Learning Management System
- LMS
- LTI
- Open-Source
- REST
tags_raw:
- Education
- EdTech
- GraphQL
- Learning Management System
- LMS
- LTI
- Open Source
- REST
created: '2025-01-14'
modified: '2026-09-05'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: canvas:canvas-lms-rest-api
  name: Canvas LMS REST API
  description: The Canvas LMS REST API provides programmatic access to courses, assignments, quizzes, grades, users, enrollments,
    accounts, discussions, files, modules, rubrics, submissions, SIS imports, and account administration. It uses OAuth 2.0
    access tokens and returns JSON with ISO 8601 timestamps, supporting pagination, request throttling, masquerading, and
    compound documents.
  humanURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/
  tags:
  - Education
  - LMS
  - REST
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/
  - type: Authentication
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.oauth.html
  - type: Pagination
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.pagination.html
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/canvas-lms-openapi.yml
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/
  - type: Swagger
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/api-docs.json
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/canvas-rate-limits.yml
  - type: OAuthScopes
    url: scopes/canvas-scopes.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/canvas-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/canvas-data-model.yml
  - type: AgentSkill
    url: skills/_index.yml
  x-features:
  - OAuth 2.0 authentication with access tokens
  - JSON responses with ISO 8601 timestamps
  - 64-bit integer IDs and string ID support
  - Form-encoded and JSON request bodies
  - Pagination for large result sets
  - Request throttling and quota controls
  - Masquerading for acting on behalf of users
  - Compound documents for linked resources
  - File upload workflows
  - SIS imports and roster sync
  - Live event streams via Canvas Data services
  - Caliper event format compatibility
  - xAPI statement support
  x-use-cases:
  - Building custom student dashboards or mobile apps
  - Automating course provisioning and enrollment via SIS imports
  - Syncing grades and assignments to external gradebooks
  - Analytics and learning-event data pipelines
  - Integrating third-party tools through LTI
  - Bulk content migration between courses or institutions
  - Institutional reporting and audit-log extraction
  baseURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/api/v1
- aid: canvas:canvas-lms-graphql-api
  name: Canvas LMS GraphQL API
  description: The Canvas LMS GraphQL API is an alternative to the REST API that lets clients request exactly the fields they
    need across Canvas resources in a single request. It is well suited for dashboards and aggregated views that otherwise
    require many REST round-trips.
  humanURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.graphql.html
  tags:
  - Education
  - GraphQL
  - LMS
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.graphql.html
  - url: graphql/canvas-graphql.md
    type: GraphQL
  x-features:
  - Typed GraphQL schema over Canvas resources
  - Single-request fetches across courses, users, and assignments
  - Reduced over-fetching for dashboards
  - OAuth 2.0 bearer-token authentication
  x-use-cases:
  - Building performant student or instructor dashboards
  - Aggregating course, assignment, and grade data in one request
  - Mobile apps with limited bandwidth
  baseURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/api/graphql
- aid: canvas:canvas-lti-integrations
  name: Canvas LTI Integrations
  description: Canvas supports Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI 1.1 and LTI 1.3 / Advantage) for embedding external tools,
    assignments, and content into courses with deep linking, grade passback, and names-and-roles service.
  humanURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.tools_intro.html
  tags:
  - Education
  - LMS
  - LTI
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/file.tools_intro.html
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/canvas-conformance.yml
  x-features:
  - LTI 1.1 and LTI 1.3 / Advantage support
  - Deep linking for tool placements
  - Assignment and Grade Services (AGS) for grade passback
  - Names and Roles Provisioning Service (NRPS)
  - Configurable tool placements across Canvas UI
  x-use-cases:
  - Embedding third-party learning tools in Canvas courses
  - Passing grades from external graders back to Canvas
  - Provisioning course rosters into external tools
  baseURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/api/lti
- aid: canvas:canvas-courses-api
  name: Canvas Courses API
  description: The Courses resource of the Canvas LMS REST API — 31 operations covering course creation, settings, users and
    enrollment counts, course copy, blueprint associations, effective due dates, bulk course updates, conclude/delete and
    course reset. Split from the first-party contract Instructure publishes at https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/courses.json.
  humanURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/
  tags:
  - Courses
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/canvas-courses-api-openapi.yml
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/courses.html
  - type: Swagger
    url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/courses.json
  baseURL: https://canvas.instructure.com/api/v1
common:
- type: OAuthScopes
  url: scopes/canvas-scopes.yml
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/issues
- type: SecurityPolicy
  url: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/blob/master/SECURITY.md
- type: CodeOfConduct
  url: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/blob/master/code_of_conduct.md
- type: ContributionGuide
  url: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md
- type: License
  name: AGPL-3.0
  url: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/blob/master/LICENSE
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/canvas-agentic-access.yml
- type: TrustCenter
  url: security/canvas-trust-center.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/canvas-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/canvas-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/canvas-authentication.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/canvaslms
- type: Website
  url: https://www.instructure.com/canvas
- type: Documentation
  url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/instructure
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms
- type: StatusPage
  url: https://status.instructure.com/
- type: Community
  url: https://community.canvaslms.com/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.instructure.com/policies/privacy
- type: Integrations
  url: https://www.instructure.com/partners
- url: https://www.instructure.com/resources/blog
  type: Blog
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.instructure.com/policies/acceptable-use
- type: Packages
  url: packages/canvas-packages.yml
- type: SDKs
  url: packages/canvas-packages.yml
- type: WellKnown
  url: well-known/canvas-well-known.yml
- type: SecurityTxt
  url: well-known/canvas-security.txt
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/canvas-llms.txt
- type: ToolCrosswalk
  url: mcp/canvas-tool-crosswalk.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/canvas-conformance.yml
- type: Compliance
  url: https://www.instructure.com/trust-center
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/canvas-problem-types.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/canvas-lifecycle.yml
- type: Deprecation
  url: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Change-Log/tkb-p/changelog
- type: ChangeLog
  url: changelog/canvas-changelog.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/canvas-conventions.yml
- type: Sandbox
  url: sandbox/canvas-sandbox.yml
- type: CLI
  url: cli/canvas-cli.yml
- type: Components
  url: components/canvas-components.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/canvas-data-model.yml
- type: Webhooks
  url: asyncapi/canvas-live-events-webhooks.yml
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/canvas-rate-limits.yml
- type: Plans
  url: plans/canvas-plans-pricing.yml
- type: Security
  url: https://www.instructure.com/trust-center/vulnerability-disclosure
- type: Overlay
  url: overlays/canvas-canvas-lms-overlay.yaml
- type: Overlay
  url: overlays/canvas-canvas-courses-api-overlay.yaml
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://developerdocs.instructure.com/services/canvas
- type: APIReference
  url: https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://developerdocs.instructure.com/services/canvas/oauth2/file.oauth
- type: Support
  url: https://community.canvaslms.com/
- type: SignUp
  url: https://www.instructure.com/canvas/free-for-teacher
- type: Pricing
  url: https://www.instructure.com/canvas
- type: X-MCPServerCandidate
  url: mcp/canvas-mcp.yml
  name: Derived candidate tool set — Instructure publishes no MCP server (probes 404/503)
integrations:
- name: Become a partner
- name: Scale with us
- name: Expand your reach
- name: Make an impact
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-09-05'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 174
  pass: local-v3
x-parent: instructure
x-relationship: product

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