How does Canvas do ReSTful?

Canvas implements the API by providing URL endpoints to access various data. All of the API requests start out with

https://<yourdomain>.instructure.com/api/v1/

“v1” in the above address should be replaced with the current API version, which is “v1”. The current version is 1 and it is not anticipated it will change any time soon. Replace <yourdomain> with, well, your sub-domain. This is part of the URL you use to login to Canvas. For example, the URL used for this course is https://training.instructure.com so the sub-domain would be "training". Each API request is prefixed with the above address.

Here are several common endpoints.

Assignments

Return the list of assignments for the current context.

GET /courses/:course_id/assignments

Assignment Groups

List of assignment groups for the given course.

GET /courses/:course_id/assignment_groups

Discussion Topics

Return the list of discussion topics for this course.

GET /courses/:course_id/discussion_topics

Return the list of discussion topics for this group.

GET /api/v1/groups/:group_id/discussion_topics

Return the current user’s list of todo items, as seen on the user dashboard.

GET /api/v1/users/self/todo

Accounts

List accounts that the current user can view or manage. Typically, students and even teachers will get an empty list in response. Only account admins can view the accounts that they are in.

GET /accounts

Retrieve information on an individual account, given by id or sis sis_account_id.

GET /accounts/:id

List of active, non-deleted, courses in this account

GET /accounts/:account_id/courses

Courses

Return the list of active courses for the current user.

GET /courses

Return the list of sections for this course.

GET /courses/:course_id/sections

Return the list of students enrolled in this course.

GET /courses/:course_id/students

Users

Return the user’s page view history in json format, similar to the available CSV download. Pagination is used as described in API basics section.

GET /users/:user_id/page_views

Return the current user’s global activity stream. The response is currently hard-coded to the last 2 weeks or 21 total items.

GET /users/self/activity_stream

or

GET /users/activity_stream

Return user profile data, including user id, name, and profile pic. When requesting the profile for the user accessing the API, the user’s calendar feed URL will be returned as well.

GET /users/:user_id/profile

SIS Imports

Get the status of an already created SIS import.

GET /accounts/:account_id/sis_imports/:id

Ready...set...not quite

The one thing you're lacking is the api_token. Once you have the api_token you have all the pieces necessary for making API requests. Continue on to learn what this is all about.

By the way, here is a cheat sheet with some of the more commonly used API endpoints.