mcp-piazza

mcp-piazza

A read-only Model Context Protocol server for Piazza. It works with every MCP client: Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Cline, Codex, Gemini CLI, Goose, opencode, JetBrains, LM Studio, Continue, and others.

Ask your assistant about your courses:

• "What did I miss on Piazza this week?"
• "Are there unresolved questions about HW3 in CSE 12?"
• "Did anyone already ask about the midterm room?"
• "When are the TA office hours?"
• "What did the instructor change in @142?"

The server only reads data. It cannot post, edit, endorse, or delete.

Quick start

• Install uv.

• Log in one time. The command opens a login page in your browser:

  uvx mcp-piazza login
  

  You can also skip this step. If the server has no session, the first tool call opens the same page and shows its link.

• Add the server to your client. The server command is uvx with the argument mcp-piazza. For example:

  claude mcp add --scope user --transport stdio piazza -- uvx mcp-piazza   # Claude Code
  codex mcp add piazza -- uvx mcp-piazza                                   # Codex CLI
  

  See docs/clients.md for Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, Gemini CLI, and other clients.

• Ask: "List my Piazza courses."

Tools, prompts and resources

Tool	Purpose
list_courses	List your courses with ID, course number, term, role, active status, and folders.
get_course_info	Get the course page: description, syllabus, office hours, general information, and staff with emails.
get_unread_counts	Count unread posts in each active course.
recent_activity	List posts with new activity since a time (24h, 7d, 2026-10-01), in all active courses or one course.
list_posts	List post summaries. Filters: all, unread, following, unresolved, unanswered, mine, starred. Optional folder and paging.
search_posts	Search posts by keywords in one course or in all active courses.
get_post	Read one full thread: question, instructor answer, student answer, followups, replies, and poll data.
get_posts	Read up to 20 full threads in one call.
get_post_history	Show every version of a post, with a diff between versions.
list_instructor_notes	List notes and polls written by instructors.
get_attachment	Open an image or file from a post. The model can see images.
get_course_stats	Get the data from the course Statistics page.

Every tool accepts a course ID, a course number such as CSE 12 or cse12, or part of the course name.

Prompt	Purpose
catch_up	Read all posts since a time and summarize them, with actions for you.
before_asking	Find out if a question was already asked and answered.
exam_prep	Read all posts about an exam or topic and collect the facts.

Many clients show prompts as slash commands.

Skill	Purpose
piazza-catch-up	The catch_up steps, for agents that use skills.
piazza-exam-prep	The exam_prep steps.
piazza-before-asking	The before_asking steps.

Skills work in Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, opencode, and other agents. They need the server. To install them:

npx skills add jadenpxrk/mcp-piazza

Resource	Content
piazza://courses	Your courses
piazza://courses/{course_id}/posts/{number}	One full thread

See docs/tools.md for parameters and output fields, and docs/workflows.md for examples.

Authentication

Piazza has no public API. This server uses piazza-api, which logs in as the Piazza website does.

Method	How	Use it when
Login page	mcp-piazza login, or the link from the first tool call	Most people. The page offers the three methods below.
Browser session	mcp-piazza login --browser	You are logged in to piazza.com in Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Chromium, Vivaldi, or Opera. This works with school SSO.
Password	mcp-piazza login --password	You want to type your email and password in the terminal.
Session cookie	mcp-piazza login --cookie	You want to paste the session_id cookie from the browser developer tools.
Environment variables	PIAZZA_EMAIL, PIAZZA_PASSWORD	You want automatic login when the session expires.

All methods save only the session cookies to ~/.config/mcp-piazza/cookies.json with file mode 600. They do not save your password. When the session expires, the next tool call opens the login page again. mcp-piazza logout deletes the session.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Purpose
PIAZZA_EMAIL	none	Account email for automatic login.
PIAZZA_PASSWORD	none	Account password for automatic login.
PIAZZA_COOKIE_FILE	~/.config/mcp-piazza/cookies.json	Path of the saved session.
PIAZZA_ANONYMIZE_STUDENTS	false	Replace student names with pseudonyms.
PIAZZA_FENCE_CONTENT	true	Mark post text as untrusted data.
PIAZZA_KEEP_UNREAD	false	Mark unread posts unread again after the server reads them.
PIAZZA_MIN_INTERVAL	0.5	Minimum seconds between Piazza requests.
PIAZZA_CACHE_TTL	60	Seconds to keep feeds and posts in memory. 0 turns off the cache.

See docs/configuration.md for examples and the command line.

Privacy and safety

• Read-only. The server has no tools that change Piazza data. The only write is the optional PIAZZA_KEEP_UNREAD restore.
• Prompt-injection fencing. Other course members write the post text. The server puts that text between <<<UNTRUSTED PIAZZA TEXT ...>>> markers, and the server instructions tell the model to treat it as data.
• Student pseudonyms. When PIAZZA_ANONYMIZE_STUDENTS=true, other students show as Student 3f2a1c. Staff keep their names. Your own posts show as you.
• Local only. The server runs on your computer. It sends your cookies only to piazza.com.

See docs/privacy.md for the full model and its limits.

Development

uv sync
uv run pytest               # offline tests, no Piazza account needed
uv run ruff check src tests
uv run ruff format src tests
uv run mypy src

See AGENTS.md for the project layout and rules.

Limitations

• Piazza can change its internal API at any time. If tools fail after a Piazza update, see docs/troubleshooting.md.
• When the server reads a full post, Piazza marks the post as read and counts a view, as the website does. Set PIAZZA_KEEP_UNREAD=true to mark unread posts unread again.
• The course page files and links (the Resources tab) are not available. get_course_info shows the names of the resource sections only.
• Piazza does not document the poll format. get_post returns the poll data as Piazza sends it.
• Some instructors hide the Statistics page. For those courses, get_course_stats returns an error.

License

MIT. This project is not affiliated with Piazza.