Moodle MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives Claude direct, structured access to any Moodle LMS instance. Written in Go — single binary, no runtime dependencies.

Built for students. Ask Claude natural questions about your courses, grades, assignments, and deadlines instead of clicking through Moodle's UI.

What You Can Do

Example questions you can ask Claude:

• "What are my grades across all courses?"

• "Do I have any assignments due this week?"

• "Show me the contents of my Digital Signal Processing course."

• "What's the most urgent deadline I have right now?"

• "Do I have any unread notifications?"

Requirements

• Go 1.23+

• A Moodle account at any institution that has the Mobile Web Service enabled

Installation

git clone https://github.com/Jawadh-Salih/moodle-mcp-server.git
cd moodle-mcp-server
make build

The binary is written to ./moodle-mcp.

Authentication

Two authentication modes are supported.

Mode 1: Token (Recommended)

If you have a Moodle API token (available from your Moodle profile under Preferences > Security keys), use it directly. The token never passes through Claude's context window.

export MOODLE_URL=https://moodle.youruniversity.edu
export MOODLE_TOKEN=your-api-token

Mode 2: Interactive Login

Start the server with no configuration and authenticate through Claude at runtime using the login tool:

"Log in to my Moodle at https://moodle.youruniversity.edu with username student123"

Security note: The login tool accepts a password as a tool argument. This means the password passes through Claude's context window and may be retained in conversation history. Use token-based authentication (Mode 1) in shared or persistent environments.

Mode 3: Credentials via Environment

export MOODLE_URL=https://moodle.youruniversity.edu
export MOODLE_USERNAME=your-username
export MOODLE_PASSWORD=your-password

Credentials are exchanged for a token at startup; the password is not stored after that.

Configuration

Claude Desktop

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Token-based (recommended):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "moodle": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/moodle-mcp",
      "env": {
        "MOODLE_URL": "https://moodle.youruniversity.edu",
        "MOODLE_TOKEN": "your-api-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Interactive login (no credentials in config):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "moodle": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/moodle-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

Add to .claude/settings.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "moodle": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/moodle-mcp",
      "env": {
        "MOODLE_URL": "https://moodle.youruniversity.edu",
        "MOODLE_TOKEN": "your-api-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

Development

# Run tests
make test

# Run tests with race detector and verbose output
make test-v

# Run all benchmarks
make bench

# Generate HTML coverage report
make coverage

# Print coverage summary
make coverage-text

# Run go vet
make lint

Benchmark Results (Apple M1 Pro)

Project Structure

.
├── cmd/moodle-mcp/       # Entry point: MCP server setup and tool registration
├── internal/
│   ├── api/              # HTTP client, authentication, error types
│   ├── config/           # Environment config, URL normalisation
│   └── tools/            # One file per domain (courses, grades, assignments…)
├── Makefile
└── README.md

Layer responsibilities:

• internal/api — all HTTP communication with Moodle. No business logic.

• internal/config — load and validate configuration. No HTTP.

• internal/tools — one handler per MCP tool. Calls api.Client, formats output. No HTTP directly.

• cmd/moodle-mcp/main.go — wires everything together, registers tools with the MCP server.

How It Works

This server uses Moodle's Web Services REST API with the moodle_mobile_app service, which is enabled by default on virtually all Moodle installations. No admin configuration is required.

• Authentication credentials are sent in the HTTP POST body, not the URL, to avoid appearing in server access logs.

• API responses are capped at 10 MB to prevent memory exhaustion.

• Course names are fetched once and reused across all tools — no N+1 HTTP calls.

• HTTP clients have explicit 30-second timeouts on all connections.

Troubleshooting

"Invalid login" error: Double-check your username and password. Some institutions use an email address as the username; others use a student ID.

"Web service not available": Your Moodle admin may have disabled the Mobile Web Service. Ask them to enable it under Site administration → Plugins → Web services → Mobile.

"User ID not set": Call get_site_info after logging in, or use token-based auth which sets the user ID automatically at startup.

Grades not showing: The grade report API requires the gradereport/user:view capability. This is standard for students but may be restricted on some sites.

License

MIT