list_announcements
Retrieve course announcements from Canvas LMS by providing a course identifier to access important updates and information.
Instructions
List announcements for a specific course.
Args:
course_identifier: The Canvas course code (e.g., badm_554_120251_246794) or ID
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| course_identifier | Yes |
Output Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| result | Yes |
Implementation Reference
- The handler function for the 'list_announcements' MCP tool. It resolves the course ID, fetches discussion topics filtered as announcements using Canvas API parameters 'include[]=announcement' and 'only_announcements=true', formats the results with ID, title, and posted date, and returns a formatted string list.
async def list_announcements(course_identifier: str) -> str: """List announcements for a specific course. Args: course_identifier: The Canvas course code (e.g., badm_554_120251_246794) or ID """ course_id = await get_course_id(course_identifier) params = { "include[]": ["announcement"], "only_announcements": True, "per_page": 100 } announcements = await fetch_all_paginated_results(f"/courses/{course_id}/discussion_topics", params) if isinstance(announcements, dict) and "error" in announcements: return f"Error fetching announcements: {announcements['error']}" if not announcements: return f"No announcements found for course {course_identifier}." announcements_info = [] for announcement in announcements: announcement_id = announcement.get("id") title = announcement.get("title", "Untitled announcement") posted_at = format_date(announcement.get("posted_at")) announcements_info.append( f"ID: {announcement_id}\nTitle: {title}\nPosted: {posted_at}\n" ) course_display = await get_course_code(course_id) or course_identifier return f"Announcements for Course {course_display}:\n\n" + "\n".join(announcements_info) - src/canvas_mcp/server.py:49-49 (registration)Within register_all_tools, this line calls register_discussion_tools(mcp), which registers the list_announcements tool (along with other discussion/announcement tools) to the MCP server.
register_discussion_tools(mcp) - src/canvas_mcp/server.py:26-26 (registration)Import of register_discussion_tools from .tools, which contains the registration logic for list_announcements.
register_messaging_tools, - Imports helper functions get_course_id and get_course_code used in list_announcements to resolve course_identifier to numeric ID.
from ..core.cache import get_course_code, get_course_id from ..core.client import fetch_all_paginated_results, make_canvas_request - Imports fetch_all_paginated_results core client helper used to fetch paginated announcements from Canvas API.
from ..core.dates import format_date, truncate_text from ..core.logging import log_error, log_warning