canvas-request

canvas-request

This is a simple npm module for making API calls to Instructure's canvas.

Usage

The following parameters are required either as environment variables or as parameters in the Parameter Store:

• CANVAS_CLIENT_ID
• CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET
• CANVAS_REFRESH_TOKEN

If they are included in the parameter store, include the parameter_header in the config (see below) and set the credential_method to aws_ssm. For example, if I have a parameter named "lms-event-integration.dev.CANVAS_CLIENT_ID" and another named "lms-event-integration.dev.CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET" then my parameter_header would be "lms-event-integration.dev".

If you are not using the parameter store, you must have those values set as environment variables.

var canvas = require('./index.js')
// var canvas_token = '<place your canvas token here>'
var canvas_config = {
    // 'token': canvas_token, // If you include the token in the config, you don't need the CANVAS_CLIENT_ID, CANVAS_CLIENT_SECRET or the CANVAS_REFRESH_TOKEN.  Omit to use aws_ssm or env_vars
    'credential_method': 'aws_ssm', // Either aws_ssm or env_vars
    'aws': { // include if using aws_ssm
        'parameter_header': 'lms-event-integration.dev',
        'region': 'us-west-2',
        'aws_params_location': 'file' // Either file (~/.aws/credentials) or env_vars
    }
}

var requestOptions = {
    'url': 'https://byu.test.instructure.com/api/v1/accounts/1/users',
    'method': 'GET',
    'headers': {
        'Accept': 'application/json'
    }
}

canvas(requestOptions, canvas_config, function(err, res, body) {
    if(err) {
        console.log(err)
    } else {
        console.log(body)
    }
})

NOTE: "aws-ssm" is used to fetch parameters stored in the Amazon Parameter Store. For more information, see http://docs.aws.amazon.com/systems-manager/latest/userguide/systems-manager-paramstore.html and http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSJavaScriptSDK/latest/AWS/SSM.html.

For more information on Canvas APIs see https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/index.html

Issues

• One of the config items needs to be the canvas url. Right now the byu one is hard coded.
• I need to add to the config a boolean to set whether the token is being passed in or whether to use the refresh token.
  • If a token is being passed in, there is no need for the refresh token to be passed in.

Future Work

• There probably isn't a need to get the aws parameters every time. Can you set them as enviroment variables?