Canvas Toolchain — Curriculum Intelligence

MCP server that reads past course archives and lecture transcripts, scores topic currency, and plans the next semester.

Part of a three-app toolchain built for fast-moving courses like ITM 370 (AI-Augmented Projects):

Canvas Downloader → Curriculum Intelligence → Canvas Design Studio

• Canvas Downloader — pulls raw data (Panopto transcripts, Canvas exports) onto disk
• Curriculum Intelligence — this app — analyzes what was taught, what aged out, what's new
• Canvas Design Studio — takes the updated plan and makes the course pages look polished

Status

v1.1.0 — complete. All 27 MCP tools shipped. Current local verification: 141 tests passing and npm run build passing.

See docs/superpowers/specs/2026-05-17-curriculum-intelligence-design.md for the full design and DECISIONS.md for implementation decisions.

Install

npm install
npm run build

Run

npm run dev

Speaks MCP over stdio. Wire into Claude Code or Claude Desktop the same way as Canvas Design Studio:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "curriculum-intelligence": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["path/to/curriculum-intelligence/dist/index.js"],
      "env": { "ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "sk-ant-..." }
    }
  }
}

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY is only required for scan_recent_developments. All other tools run without it.

Config location

App state lives at ~/.curriculum-intelligence/ by default. Override with CURRICULUM_INTELLIGENCE_HOME.

~/.curriculum-intelligence/
  config.json              # registered courses + app settings
  courses/
    <courseId>/
      config.json          # semester history, feed list, options
      ideas.md             # generated after v0.6 run
      news-cache.json      # RSS feed cache
      semesters/
        <semesterId>/
          topic-map.json
          transcripts.json
          week-map.json
          quote-bank.json
          off-syllabus.json
          diff-vs-<other>.json

MCP Tools

Setup & ingest

| Tool | What it does | |------|-------------| | setup_course | Register a course — creates the folder tree and config | | get_course_state | List registered courses or inspect a single course | | ingest_canvas_archive | Walk a Canvas export folder, write topic-map.json |

Introspection

| Tool | What it does | |------|-------------| | list_assignments | List assignments from the ingested topic map | | list_pages | List pages | | list_modules | List modules (pass expandItems=true for full item detail) | | list_resources | List external resource links referenced in course content |

Diff

| Tool | What it does | |------|-------------| | diff_semesters | Side-by-side diff of two semesters — added, removed, reused, rewritten |

Transcripts

| Tool | What it does | |------|-------------| | ingest_transcripts | Read .vtt / .srt / .md transcript files, tag source=panopto\|whisper | | map_transcripts_to_weeks | Match each transcript to its course week by filename hints | | extract_lecture_topics | Return shaped lecture chunks ready for Claude to summarize | | find_off_syllabus_topics | Surface transcript tokens not present in syllabus pages for that week | | build_quote_bank | Extract notable lines matching deliberate-point trigger phrases |

Currency & signals

| Tool | What it does | |------|-------------| | fetch_news_feed | Pull RSS/Atom feeds, filter by date, cache to news-cache.json | | scan_recent_developments | Ask Claude (Anthropic API) what's new in a topic area since a date | | suggest_topics | Merge feed items + scan developments into ranked topic candidates | | score_topic_currency | Classify a topic as evergreen / current / dated | | recommend_for_topic | Return KEEP / UPDATE / DROP / ADD verdict with rationale |

Output

| Tool | What it does | |------|-------------| | generate_ideas_file | Write ideas.md listing deferred v1 scope and next prompts for Claude |

Tests

npm test

83 tests across 15 test files. All fixture-based — no network calls in the test suite.

Typical workflow

1. setup_course          → register ITM370
2. ingest_canvas_archive → parse Spring2025 export
3. ingest_canvas_archive → parse Fall2024 export (for diff)
4. diff_semesters        → what changed between semesters
5. ingest_transcripts    → load .vtt files from Canvas Downloader
6. map_transcripts_to_weeks
7. find_off_syllabus_topics  → what did the lecture cover beyond the syllabus?
8. build_quote_bank          → pull notable lines for course materials
9. fetch_news_feed           → pull Simon Willison, AI news blogs
10. scan_recent_developments → ask Claude what's new in "Prompt engineering"
11. suggest_topics           → merge signals into ranked candidates
12. score_topic_currency     → classify each topic
13. recommend_for_topic      → get KEEP/UPDATE/DROP/ADD verdicts
14. generate_ideas_file      → capture what to build next

Planning and Export Tools

• generate_recommended_outline — draft next-semester module sequence
• draft_assignment_brief — redraft an assignment with updated context
• import_previous_shell, shift_dates, update_examples, export_course_folder — shell update pipeline

Deferred

• Second-brain TopicSource adapter
• Cross-app model-routing UI in Command & Control

See ideas.md (generated after a run) and DECISIONS.md for context.