How do I install Brightspace?

Copy the stdio config for Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or VS Code on this page. It uses the publisher's install, not a PlugMCP proxy.

Does Brightspace need an API key?

The publisher lists these environment variables: D2L_BASE_URL, D2L_SESSION_DIR, D2L_HEADLESS, D2L_TOKEN_TTL, D2L_INCLUDE_COURSES, D2L_EXCLUDE_COURSES, D2L_ACTIVE_ONLY, D2L_CURRENT_ONLY, D2L_DEV_MODE, D2L_NO_UPDATE_CHECK.

What transport does Brightspace use?

Brightspace runs locally over stdio.

When was Brightspace last checked?

Last checked 2026-11-10. D2L Brightspace MCP server: grades, due dates, assignments, announcements and files. Any school.

Brightspace MCP server

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

Install Node.js (version 20 or newer) if you don't have it. Download, run the installer, done.
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 confirm it's you when you sign in (a phone app, or another way like a text message). Your password goes into your computer's own password store (Keychain on Mac, Credential Manager on Windows), never into a file. Before signing you in, it connects itself to Claude Desktop, Cursor, Antigravity, Codex, or Claude Code if you have them. If one of them already has a brightspace entry pointing somewhere else (an old local build, a fork), setup shows you that entry and asks before replacing it.

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.
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).

The AI does everything it can by itself: it checks your computer, downloads the browser sign-in uses, and connects your AI apps. Then it gives you one command to run in a terminal. That command asks for your password and waits for you to approve the sign-in on your phone. That's the only part that needs you. Afterwards the AI checks that it can see your courses.

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, pick option 2 at setup's sign-in question so the page opens for you to finish 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" · "What did my professor say about Mini-Assignment 1?" (own assignment feedback is read from every route Brightspace documents for students) · "Is there feedback on my midterm?" (quiz-scored grades link to the quiz, since quiz feedback, including feedback only viewable in LockDown Browser, isn't readable through the API)
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?" (quizzes are collected from the quiz list, the course content, and the gradebook, so a closed quiz or one the list leaves out still shows up; each course says whether its quiz sources all answered, and if Brightspace refused one it's marked incomplete rather than passed off as everything; "complete" means every source answered, not that every quiz is guaranteed to be listed. A gradebook column linked to a quiz the list omits now shows up as a quiz with its dates and attempts instead of a bare grade-only row when the quiz can be read. Gradebook-only rows now also appear on tenants that send only the documented `GradeType` on grade columns; hidden grade columns, hidden assignments and inactive quizzes never produce one. Content quizzes beyond the first 30 per course are listed from the course content alone and the course is marked incomplete. Quiz rows may also say whether they are open, closed, or not yet open, and mark a quiz whose details Brightspace would not return; gradebook lookups for unlisted quizzes are capped at 20 per course, or 5 when the course's quiz tool can't be identified)
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
Syllabus	"What's the late policy in ECE 264's syllabus?" (if the course keeps its syllabus in an external tool such as Simple Syllabus, you get the link to open instead)
People	"Who are the TAs for ECE 264?" · "Who is in my project group?"
Discussions	"Summarize the latest posts in the final project thread"

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). `setup` asks this as option 2 of its one "how often do you want to approve sign-ins" question and saves it as `rememberMfa` in `config.json`; the env var overrides it (details)
`D2L_TOTP_SECRET`	An authenticator setup key, so a Microsoft Entra "enter a code" challenge is answered on this computer instead of on your phone (off by default). Prefer `setup` (option 3), which keeps the key in your OS keychain; this variable is for CI and containers with no keychain and is weaker, because anything that can read the process environment gets your second factor (details)
`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_CURRENT_ONLY=true`	Only show courses in their current enrollment window, like Brightspace's "Current Courses" widget
`D2L_NO_UPDATE_CHECK=1`	Turn off the new-version notice
`D2L_DEV_MODE=true`	Write a local, content-free log of tool calls and sign-in events, for debugging session problems (how)

When it asks you to sign in

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 the assistant keeps checking on its own — each check waits up to 45 seconds and the original question completes as soon as the sign-in does, without you having to say you've approved it. If your AI client shows tool progress messages, the number appears while the question is still running instead. 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.

Want fewer 2FA prompts? setup asks one question, "How often do you want to approve sign-ins on your phone?": 1 every time (default), 2 remember this computer, or 3 let this computer answer Microsoft's code requests itself (needs an authenticator setup key). Options 2 and 3 are opt-in and not for shared computers; to turn them off, rerun setup and pick 1. The tradeoffs and the steps for getting the key are in docs/sign-in.md.

To sign out early (on a shared computer, say), just ask your AI app to sign you out of Brightspace, or run npx -y brightspace-mcp-server@latest auth --logout in a terminal. It deletes this computer's saved Brightspace session, so the next question does a full sign-in. Your saved password, authenticator key, and settings are kept, so with a saved authenticator key that sign-in can finish without you; on a shared computer, also delete the saved brightspace-mcp-server entries from your computer's password store (Keychain Access on a Mac, Credential Manager on Windows). Other AI apps open on this computer are signed out too and will ask you to sign in on their next question. (An app you opened before updating may keep answering for up to an hour; quit and reopen it to sign it out right away.) It only clears this computer; it does not sign you out of Microsoft or Brightspace anywhere else. If a sign-in is in progress, it refuses and deletes nothing.

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, the sign-in browser, 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.

For developers

Tool reference, response fields, and environment variables: LLMs.md. What's safe to build against: STABILITY.md. Licensed under the MIT License.

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