Ask “what do I still have to do this week?” and get an answer you can trust.
Canvas only shows you assignments that have a due date set. When an instructor leaves the date blank, or copies a course from last year without updating the dates, that work drops off your dashboard and to-do list. Nothing warns you.
Canvas Viewer gives Claude the full list of your coursework, dated or not, along with the assignment instructions, announcements, discussions, course files and modules. If the instructor wrote “due Friday” in the assignment text or in an announcement, Claude can find it there.
It also checks discussion boards properly. Canvas marks a discussion as submitted as soon as you make your first post, even when you still owe replies to classmates. Claude can count what you have actually posted and compare it with what the assignment asks for.
It can only read. It cannot submit work, post to a discussion, send a message, or change anything in your Canvas account. The code has no ability to do those things.
Your copy is yours alone. You run your own private copy, with its own password. There is no shared service in the middle, and nobody else can see your coursework through it.
You can shut it off at any time from inside Canvas. Go to Account → Settings → Approved Integrations and delete the token you created. Access stops immediately, whatever else is still running.
There are three steps: run the server, connect Claude to it, and add the skills, which teach Claude how to make sense of what it reads. Step one has three options, so start by picking one.
| A. Self-hosted | B. Railway | C. This computer only | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pick this if | You have a computer that stays on all the time | You don’t have an always-on computer, and want Claude in a browser or on your phone | You only use Claude Code, on one computer |
| claude.ai in a browser | Yes | Yes | No |
| The phone apps | Yes | Yes | No |
| Cost | Whatever your machine already costs | About $5 a month, paid to Railway | Free |
| Needs a terminal | Yes, though Claude can do the typing | No | Yes |
If you have never rented a server and don’t know what a terminal is, B is the one that will work for you. If you have a machine that is always on, A costs nothing extra and keeps everything in your hands.