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.
Real signal across most facets with visible, nameable gaps — the contract exists but is thin, or the portal is good while governance and commercial terms are absent.
API Evangelist profiles Canvas the way a machine reads it — 14 machine-readable artifacts across 4 APIs, pulled from the provider's own public surface and indexed so a developer, an analyst, or an AI agent can evaluate it against every other provider on the network.
Every provider in the network is reduced to the same set of machine-readable artifacts — OpenAPI contracts, event specifications, GraphQL schemas, runnable collections, pricing and rate-limit signals, security posture, OAuth scopes, and the agent surfaces (MCP servers and skills) that let software drive the API on its own. We profile them because the interface is the part of a company you can actually inspect: it is a truer signal of what a provider does than any marketing page. From those artifacts we compute the Kin Score — Canvas scores 46.4/100 (developing), with a separate agent-readiness read of 48/100 (agent ready). The full breakdown is below, followed by every artifact we hold — each card links through to its machine-readable definition on apis.io.
Kin Score
This is the API Evangelist rating — a single, repeatable read computed from the artifacts on this page. Green fill is points earned; the red track is points possible, so every bar shows earned-versus-possible at a glance.
Kin Score
How this is scored →scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
How we profile Canvas
Each block below is one kind of artifact we hold for Canvas. For each we say what it is and why it earns a place in the profile, then list every one we've indexed — capped at two rows, scroll within the panel for the rest.
APIs 4
Each API is captured as its own OpenAPI definition — every operation, parameter, and response. This is the single most useful machine-readable description of what an API does, and it's what lets us score, lint, mock, and generate against it without asking the provider for anything.
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 API from Canvas — 25 operation(s) for courses.
Open Collections 1
Open, tool-agnostic collections carry the same runnable value as Postman without locking you to one client — the portable, forkable form of the same exercise.
Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).
Canvas LMS REST API (Courses subset)
OPEN COLLECTIONGraphQL 1
Where a provider ships GraphQL, the schema is the contract. We profile it alongside the REST surface so the whole interface is legible in one place.
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...
GRAPHQLPricing Plans 1
Pricing is part of the interface. Machine-readable plans tell you what a tier costs and includes before you commit — one of the six things the Kin Score reads for commercial clarity.
Published pricing tiers and plan structures.
Canvas Plans Pricing
PLANSRate Limits 1
Rate limits are the difference between a demo that works and a production integration that doesn't fall over. Publishing them is an operational-transparency signal — and a hard requirement for any agent that plans its own throughput.
Documented rate limits and quota policies.
Canvas Rate Limits
RATE LIMITSFinOps 1
Cost, billing, and metering signals let a buyer model the financial operations of an API before it's live. We profile them for the same reason we profile pricing: the money is part of the contract.
Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.
Canvas Finops
FINOPSSecurity Posture 4
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals — the evidence that a provider takes security seriously enough to document it. We profile it because you can't govern what you can't see.
Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.
Canvas Trust Center
SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, PCI DSS, HIPAA, FedRAMP, GDPR, CSA STAR
SECURITYAgentic Access 1
An x-agentic-access contract marks which operations are safe for an agent to run on its own and which need a human in the loop. It is the difference between an API an agent can use and one it can use safely.
Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.
Resources
Every other property we hold for Canvas — documentation, portals, status pages, policies, and corporate surface — grouped by the job it does, following the integrator's arc from getting started to running in production.
Documentation 1
Reference material describing how the API behaves
Agent Surfaces 1
MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs
Build 2
SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with
Access & Security 4
Authentication, authorization, and security posture
Operate 2
Status, limits, changes, and where to get help
Commercial 2
Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use
Company 3
The organization behind the API
← All providers · Data indexed from github.com/api-evangelist/canvas · machine-readable index on apis.io