Canvas for Home Assistant

Display your children's Canvas LMS homework on your Home Assistant dashboard, with optional notifications when assignments appear or are completed.

Based on schwartzpub's original integration and canvas_parent_api.

Features

• Dashboard card showing upcoming homework per student, sorted by due date
• Sensors for students, courses, assignments, and submissions
• Events for new and completed homework (for automations/notifications)
• Persistent state tracking (survives restarts, no duplicate notifications)
• Polls Canvas every 10 minutes

Installation

Step 1: Get a Canvas API Token

1. Log into Canvas as a parent at https://yourschool.instructure.com
2. Go to Account → Settings
3. Under Approved Integrations, click + New Access Token
4. Enter a purpose (e.g., "Home Assistant"), click Generate Token
5. Copy the token immediately — you cannot retrieve it later

Step 2: Install the Integration

1. In HACS, click the three dots menu → Custom repositories
2. Add https://github.com/thomergil/canvas_hassio as type Integration
3. Find "Canvas" in HACS and click Install
4. Restart Home Assistant (in the terminal: ha core restart)

Step 3: Configure

1. Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Integrations
2. Click + Add Integration, search for Canvas
3. Enter your Canvas URL (e.g., https://yourschool.instructure.com)
4. Paste your API token
5. Click Submit

Step 4: Add the Dashboard Card

The card is automatically registered when the integration loads. After configuring the integration, hard refresh your browser (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R), then:

1. Edit your dashboard
2. Click + Add Card
3. Search for "Canvas" — select Canvas - Homework Card
4. Configure the options in the UI, or switch to YAML and paste:

type: custom:canvas-homework
title: Homework
look_ahead_days: 5
overdue_cutoff_days: 5
course_sort_order: due_date
entities:
  - entity: sensor.canvas_students
  - entity: sensor.canvas_courses
  - entity: sensor.canvas_assignments
  - entity: sensor.canvas_submissions

Card Options

Option	Default	Description
title	Canvas - Homework	Card header (set to "" for no title)
look_ahead_days	5	Days ahead to show
overdue_cutoff_days	5	Days back to show overdue
course_sort_order	due_date	due_date or alphabetical

Sensors

The integration creates five sensors:

Sensor	Description
sensor.canvas_students	Your enrolled children
sensor.canvas_courses	Their courses
sensor.canvas_assignments	Pending assignments
sensor.canvas_submissions	Submitted work and grades
sensor.canvas_homework_events	Per-student assignment tracking

Automations

The integration fires two events:

• canvas_homework_appeared — new assignment detected
• canvas_homework_completed — assignment submitted

Example: Notify on New Homework

alias: New Homework Alert
trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: canvas_homework_appeared
action:
  - service: notify.mobile_app_your_phone
    data:
      title: "New Homework for {{ trigger.event.data.student_name }}"
      message: >
        {{ trigger.event.data.assignment_name }}
        in {{ trigger.event.data.course_name }}
        — due {{ trigger.event.data.due_at }}

Example: Per-Student Notifications

alias: Alice's Homework Alert
trigger:
  - platform: event
    event_type: canvas_homework_appeared
condition:
  - condition: template
    value_template: "{{ trigger.event.data.student_name == 'Alice Smith' }}"
action:
  - service: notify.mobile_app_your_phone
    data:
      message: "{{ trigger.event.data.assignment_name }} in {{ trigger.event.data.course_name }}"

Event Data

canvas_homework_appeared: student_name, student_id, student_short_name, assignment_name, assignment_id, course_name, due_at, points_possible, html_url, timestamp

canvas_homework_completed: all of the above plus submitted_at, score, grade

Updating

Update through the HACS UI, then restart Home Assistant (ha core restart).

Troubleshooting

Sensors show "unavailable": Check your API token hasn't expired. Go to Canvas → Account → Settings → Approved Integrations.

Card not showing: Try a hard refresh in your browser (Ctrl+Shift+R / Cmd+Shift+R). If that doesn't work, restart Home Assistant (ha core restart).

Duplicate notifications after restart: The integration uses persistent storage in /config/.storage/canvas.canvas_homework_state. Delete this file only if you want a fresh start (all current assignments will appear as "new").