Railway
Railway is a paid hosting service. It runs the server for you and gives it a web address. It costs about $5 a month, and you will need to create a Railway account. No terminal, and it works with claude.ai in a browser and with the phone apps.
Before you start
Your Canvas address. Open Canvas and copy what’s in the address bar, for example https://yourschool.instructure.com.
A Canvas access token. In Canvas, go to Account → Settings → Approved Integrations → + New Access Token. Set the expiry date; up to 90 days is a fine choice. Copy the token right away, because Canvas only shows it once. Treat it like a password.
A password you make up, at least 12 characters. Claude will ask for it once, when you connect.
1. Run the server
Click the deploy button below and sign in to Railway.
Fill in the three fields: your Canvas address, your Canvas token, and the password you made up.
Click Deploy and wait a few minutes for it to finish.
Open the new service and copy its public address. It looks something like https://canvas-viewer-mcp-production-1234.up.railway.app. You need it for step 2.
docs/railway-template.md lists exactly what the button sets up.
If something goes wrong
The service has no address. Open Settings → Networking → Generate Domain.
The address only ever shows a Railway error (“502”, “Application failed to respond”). The domain is pointing at the wrong port. Open the service’s Deploy Logs and find the line Uvicorn running on http://0.0.0.0: followed by a number. Then in Settings → Networking, edit the domain and set its port to that number.
2. Connect Claude to it
Do this on claude.ai in a web browser. The phone apps can’t add a new connector, but they will pick this one up by themselves once it’s added.
Go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste the address from step 1, exactly as it was given to you. A login page opens; enter the password you made up.
3. Install the skills
Skills are instructions that teach Claude how to turn the raw Canvas data into a useful answer. They are installed separately from the connector.
| Skill | What you get |
|---|---|
| canvas-week-report | A short, prioritized list of what you still have to do. It shows deadlines in your local time, works out real dates for courses that were copied from an earlier term, and checks for discussion replies you still owe. |
| canvas-dashboard | The same information as a dashboard page, with recent announcements and a summary of your week. |
Open the latest release and download canvas-week-report.zip and canvas-dashboard.zip. Then go to Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill and upload each file, one at a time.
Use the zip files from the release page. Zipping the folders from the repository yourself won’t work.
Then ask Claude what’s due. You don’t need to mention the skills by name.
Turning it off
In Canvas, go to Account → Settings → Approved Integrations and delete the token you created. Access stops immediately, whatever else is still running.
Also delete the project in Railway so you stop being billed.