Umd MCP

What umd-mcp does

The umd-mcp MCP server exposes University of Maryland data through tools grouped around PlanetTerp, nutrition.umd.edu, the Schedule of Classes, and the Testudo student portal. It supports both public lookups and authenticated student information.

PlanetTerp tools cover course and instructor searches, course and professor records, and grade distributions by course, professor, and section. Nutrition tools return dining-hall menus by date, meal period, and station, plus recipe details such as serving size, calories, daily values, ingredients, allergens, and dietary labels.

Schedule of Classes tools provide term and department discovery, course and section details, search and autocomplete, general education categories and courses, syllabus listings, and building information. Testudo tools can return the current academic term, a signed-in student's schedule, grades, unofficial transcript, profile, and registration appointment.

How the umd-mcp MCP server works

Tool names generally follow an <integration>_<method> pattern. PlanetTerp, nutrition, and Schedule of Classes operations work anonymously according to the supplied tool descriptions. Student-facing Testudo operations are marked as requiring login, and the login, logout, and whoami tools manage the authenticated state.

When login is requested, the server opens a controlled Chrome or Edge window using a separate browser profile. The user signs in through the UMD Shibboleth identity provider, including Duo when prompted. The server receives the callback on a UMD-published hostname that resolves to 127.0.0.1, validates the CAS service ticket, and uses the resulting session to establish cookies for connected services. The browser profile remains available for later logins. Logout clears the stored service sessions and browser cookies.

Setup and configuration

Build the project and point an MCP client at the generated Node entrypoint. The documented client configuration runs node with /path/to/umd-mcp/dist/index.js as its argument. Development commands use pnpm: install dependencies with pnpm install, run the server with pnpm dev, inspect it with pnpm inspect, and produce the build with pnpm build.

The umd-mcp MCP server can use an installed Chrome or Edge executable. Set UMD_MCP_BROWSER when the browser is elsewhere, and set UMD_MCP_PROFILE_DIR to change where the persistent browser profile is stored. Set CANVAS_TOKEN with a Canvas personal access token from ELMS profile settings if ELMS tools are enabled; the token is used as a bearer token and avoids browser sign-in for those tools.

Tools and capabilities

• Search PlanetTerp courses and instructors, inspect course or professor records, and retrieve grade distributions.
• Retrieve dining-hall menus and dish nutrition information.
• Browse Schedule of Classes terms, departments, courses, sections, instructors, gen-ed requirements, syllabi, and buildings.
• Query the current UMD term and authenticated student schedules, grades, transcript, profile, and registration appointment.
• Check the signed-in identity and which service sessions remain active.

Limitations and notes

Authenticated data depends on an active UMD sign-in and the relevant service session. The Testudo tools expose information for the signed-in student rather than arbitrary student records. The Schedule of Classes tools cover the terms currently listed by UMD, described in the source material as roughly the current term and the next few terms. Some browser-based login behavior also depends on Chrome or Edge availability and the configured profile directory.

The umd-mcp MCP server does not itself describe write operations for course registration, profile changes, or other student-account mutations in the supplied tool list; the documented Testudo capabilities are read-oriented lookups.