Brightspace

Brightspace MCP Server

By Rohan Muppa, ECE @ Purdue

Lets your AI see your Brightspace classes, so you can just ask:

"What's due this week?" · "Am I passing all my classes?" · "Summarize today's announcements" · "Turn my lecture slides into flashcards"

Works with Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT Desktop, Windsurf, and any other app that supports MCP (the standard way to plug tools into an AI). It only reads your courses — it never submits, edits, or deletes anything.

Get started in 3 steps

1. Install Node.js (version 20 or newer) if you don't have it. Download, run the installer, done.
2. Open a terminal and run the setup:

   npx -y brightspace-mcp-server@latest setup
   

   It asks for your school's Brightspace address, your username and password, and how you normally do two-factor sign-in (phone approval, authenticator code, or a browser window). Your password goes into your computer's own password store (Keychain on Mac, Credential Manager on Windows), never into a file. At the end it connects itself to Claude Desktop, Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code if you have them. On a Mac: when Keychain asks whether node may use the saved Brightspace password, choose Always Allow, not just Allow. That lets later sign-ins (the auth command and questions from your AI app) read it without asking again.
3. Restart your AI app and ask it something — the first question signs you in. If your phone asks you to approve a sign-in, approve it and ask again.

At one of these schools, add the flag and skip typing the address: --purdue, --suny, --western, --tudelft, --cuny, --leiden, --mcgill, --ngeeann, --javeriana.

Rather have the AI install it for you? Paste this into Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot, or Codex:

Install brightspace-mcp-server for me by following
https://github.com/RohanMuppa/brightspace-mcp-server/blob/main/LLMs.md
(use --purdue at Purdue, --suny at SUNY, --tudelft at TU Delft, --cuny at CUNY, --leiden at Leiden, --mcgill at McGill, --ngeeann at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, or --javeriana at Javeriana Cali).

Using a different AI app? Add the command npx -y brightspace-mcp-server@latest to its MCP settings (on Windows: cmd /c npx -y brightspace-mcp-server@latest). Exact steps for each app: docs/troubleshooting.md.

Does my school work?

If your school uses D2L Brightspace, yes. These have automatic sign-in built in:

School	Sign-in	Flag
Purdue	Microsoft (phone approval, authenticator code, or browser)	--purdue
SUNY	Shared site with a campus picker	--suny
Western University	Microsoft	--western
TU Delft	NetID (no two-factor)	--tudelft
CUNY	CUNY Login, authenticator code each time	--cuny
Leiden University	SURFconext → Microsoft	--leiden
McGill University	Microsoft Entra	--mcgill
Javeriana Cali	OneGate (password + authenticator code)	--javeriana
Ngee Ann Polytechnic	Microsoft Entra	--ngeeann
Any other D2L school	Paste your Brightspace address; if the login page isn't recognized, a browser window opens so you can sign in by hand	none

School-specific quirks: docs/sign-in.md.

Things to ask

About	Try
Grades	"Am I passing all my classes?" · "Compare my grades across courses"
Due dates	"What's due in the next 48 hours?" · "Build me a study schedule for the week"
Assignments and rubrics	"What does the lab 4 spec actually ask for?" · "Why did I lose points on the analysis criterion?"
Quizzes and exams	"Which quizzes close this week?" · "Is there a midterm in the gradebook that isn't on my assignments list?"
Announcements	"Did any professor post something important today?" · "Read the file attached to today's announcement"
Course content	"Find the midterm review slides" · "Download every PDF from Module 5" · "Search this course for office hours" · or just read a file inline instead of saving it
People	"Who are the TAs for ECE 264?" · "Who is in my project group?"
Discussions	"Summarize the latest posts in the final project thread"
Lecture videos	"What did the professor say about pinch-off in Tuesday's recording?" (Kaltura and YouTube)
Calendar	"When is my midterm?" · "Is lab cancelled on Thursday?"
For instructors and TAs	"Which students haven't submitted Lab 4 yet?" · "What feedback did I leave on this student's homework?" · "Download that student's submitted PDF" (students see a clear "instructor access required" note)

Prompts

Apps with a prompt picker (like Claude Desktop) also offer four ready-made prompts, so you can start from one click instead of typing a question:

Prompt	Arguments	What it asks for
weekly_briefing	—	A 7-day rollup of what's due, what's new, and what changed in your grades, across every course
grade_audit	courseId (optional)	Analyzes grades for one course, or all of them, and flags missing or low-scoring items
study_planner	daysAhead (optional, default 7)	Plans study time from upcoming due dates and calendar events
course_summary	courseId (required)	Syllabus, content outline, assignments, and grades for one course

Settings you might want

All optional, set in your AI app's MCP env config or your shell. The full list is in LLMs.md.

Setting	What it does
D2L_REMEMBER_MFA=true	Tick Microsoft's "Don't ask again" box so later sign-ins skip the second factor (off by default; not for shared computers)
D2L_HEADLESS=false	Show the browser window during sign-in, for MFA methods that need a click
D2L_DUO_PASSCODE=1	On Duo, type a passcode instead of waiting for a push
D2L_SESSION_COOKIE / D2L_ACCESS_TOKEN	Skip the browser entirely with a pasted cookie or token (how)
D2L_INCLUDE_COURSES / D2L_EXCLUDE_COURSES	Limit which courses the AI sees, by course id
D2L_ACTIVE_ONLY=false	Include courses whose enrollment has ended
D2L_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1	Turn off the new-version notice

There's no separate login — asking a question signs you in, and it stays signed in on its own most days. When your school wants two-factor again, the number to approve shows up right in the answer; approve it on your phone and ask again. If your AI client shows tool progress messages, the number appears while the question is still running instead, and approving within 45 seconds (less if sign-in was slow to reach two-factor) finishes the original answer without asking again. If it ever gets stuck, run this in a terminal:

npx -y brightspace-mcp-server@latest auth

On a Mac, sign-in first reads your saved password from Keychain. If you picked a one-time Allow at the Keychain prompt, a later sign-in from your AI app or another terminal can fail or hang waiting for an approval nobody sees; pick Always Allow instead. That permission only lets the local Brightspace server read its own saved sign-in password, nothing else in your Keychain.

How often you're asked is up to your school, not this tool. Everything else about sign-in — Duo, authenticator codes, visible-browser mode, and running without a browser at all (Docker, WSL, hardware keys) — is in docs/sign-in.md.

Something not working?

• Run npx -y brightspace-mcp-server@latest doctor first — it checks your Node version, saved setup, credential store, Brightspace connectivity, saved sign-in, and installed version, and tells you exactly what to fix.
• Authentication failed: The native credential store is locked or unavailable. Your password store is locked or hasn't let this server read the saved password. Unlock it (on a Mac, log in or unlock Keychain Access), then run npx -y brightspace-mcp-server@latest auth again, or setup if that still fails, and choose Always Allow when Keychain asks.
• It works in the terminal but not in the app: the app starts it separately and may not see your password store yet — see docs/troubleshooting.md.
• Which version do I have? Ask your AI "which version of the Brightspace server am I running?"
• Still stuck? Open an issue and paste what the terminal printed.