Caring CourseForge

Create and manage online courses via the CourseForge API (caringcourseforge.com). Use when the user wants to create courses, modules, lessons, generate AI content, export to SCORM/xAPI, manage knowledge libraries, or interact with the CourseForge platform. Handles course building, content generation, quizzes, accessibility validation, and course export.

Security Scan

The skill's requests and code are consistent with a CourseForge API wrapper: it only needs node and a COURSEFORGE_API_KEY and uses an npm MCP client; nothing obviously unrelated or disproportionate is requested.

Purpose & Capability

Name, description, declared requirements (node + COURSEFORGE_API_KEY), and the included wrapper script all align with a CourseForge MCP client that calls CourseForge tools. The listed tools (course, module, lesson, AI generation, export, API key management, UI control) are consistent with a full-featured platform client.

Instruction Scope

SKILL.md instructions are narrowly scoped: install the MCP client, set COURSEFORGE_API_KEY, and run the wrapper script with a tool name and JSON args. The runtime script only interacts with the MCP binary via stdin/stdout and limits environment variables passed to the child process.

Install Mechanism

No packaged install spec is required by the platform (instruction-only with an npm installation recommendation). The skill expects either a globally installed courseforge-mcp-client or will fall back to npx to fetch courseforge-mcp-client@1.3.0. Installing or running packages from npm/npx is a moderate risk relative to pure instruction-only skills because it fetches third-party code at runtime; however this is proportionate for a client wrapper and the version is pinned in the script.

Credentials

Only COURSEFORGE_API_KEY (declared) and a few standard env vars (HOME, PATH, NODE_PATH, npm_config_prefix) are used. The wrapper explicitly limits the env passed to the child process, reducing risk of unintended secret leakage. No unrelated credentials are requested.

Persistence & Privilege

The skill does not request 'always: true' or other elevated persistence. It is user-invocable and can be invoked autonomously (platform default) which is expected for a tools wrapper. It does not modify other skills or system-wide settings.

Assessment

This skill appears coherent for interacting with CourseForge. Before installing: (1) Verify the npm package (courseforge-mcp-client) and its publisher on npmjs.org to ensure it’s the official client; (2) keep your COURSEFORGE_API_KEY scoped/rotated and store it in your gateway secret store rather than plaintext; (3) be aware the wrapper may use npx to download the client at runtime (downloads third-party code); (4) if you don't trust automatic package fetches, install the package yourself from a vetted source and ensure the binary path used by the script points to that installation.

CourseForge

Build and manage courses on Caring CourseForge via the MCP client.

Source: npm — courseforge-mcp-client Publisher: Caring Consulting Co (caringcos.com)

Setup

1. Install: npm install -g courseforge-mcp-client
2. Set COURSEFORGE_API_KEY in your environment:
   • Get your key: caringcourseforge.com → Settings → API Keys
   • Store securely via your gateway environment config or shell profile (export COURSEFORGE_API_KEY=cf_prod_...). Do not store API keys in plaintext workspace files.
3. Verify: courseforge-mcp starts without errors

Calling Tools

Use the wrapper script to call any of the 89 CourseForge tools:

node scripts/courseforge.mjs <tool_name> '<json_args>'

The script requires COURSEFORGE_API_KEY in the environment (set via gateway env or shell profile).

node scripts/courseforge.mjs list_courses '{}'

Output is clean JSON (the MCP envelope is stripped automatically).

Available Tools (89)

• Courses (7): list_courses, create_course, get_course, update_course, delete_course, get_course_settings, update_course_settings
• Modules (5): create_module, update_module, delete_module, reorder_modules, get_module
• Lessons (7): create_lesson, get_lesson, update_lesson, delete_lesson, reorder_lessons, move_lesson, duplicate_lesson
• Content Blocks (6): add_content_block, get_content_block, update_content_block, delete_content_block, reorder_content_blocks, move_content_block
• Course Management (3): validate_course, duplicate_module, export_course
• Knowledge Library (5): list_collections, create_collection, list_documents, delete_document, search_knowledge
• AI & Generation (26): ai_chat_assistant, ai_chat_with_research, generate_course_outline, generate_lesson_content, generate_quiz_from_content, generate_image, generate_job_aid_pdf, suggest_improvements, auto_fix_quality_issues, translate_content, summarize_document, convert_document_to_pdf, analyze_image, marketing_support_chat, web_search, fetch_url_content, get_youtube_metadata, get_youtube_captions, scrape_web_to_knowledge, upload_to_knowledge, manage_knowledge_files, search_user_media, list_storage_files, delete_storage_file, get_storage_usage, get_openapi_spec
• Search & Media (2): search_stock_media, search_youtube
• Recordings (1): list_recordings
• API Keys (3): list_api_keys, create_api_key, revoke_api_key
• Skills (2): list_skills, get_skill
• Agentic UI Control (22): lock_canvas, unlock_canvas, refresh_canvas, notify_user, show_progress, request_confirmation, request_choice, scroll_to_element, select_element, expand_sidebar_item, focus_content_block, get_canvas_state, open_preview, close_preview, open_settings, toggle_sidebar, create_checkpoint, rollback_to_checkpoint, list_checkpoints, add_annotation, remove_annotation, highlight_issues

For full parameter details on any tool, read references/tools.md.

Common Workflows

Create a course from scratch

1. create_course — title, description, difficulty (beginner/intermediate/advanced)
2. create_module — for each section, pass courseId
3. create_lesson — for each lesson, pass courseId + moduleId
4. add_content_block — add text, images, quizzes to lessons
5. validate_course — check quality and accessibility
6. export_course — export to SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, xAPI, or HTML

AI-powered course generation

1. generate_course_outline — provide topic, audience, difficulty → get full structure
2. create_course + create_module + create_lesson — build the structure from the outline
3. generate_lesson_content — auto-generate content for each lesson
4. generate_quiz_from_content — create assessments from lesson content
5. suggest_improvements — get AI suggestions for quality
6. auto_fix_quality_issues — automatically fix issues

Use domain skills for specialized content

1. list_skills — see all 17 available specialist skills
2. get_skill — load a skill (e.g., "Instructional Designer", "HR Specialist")
3. Use the skill context when generating content with ai_chat_assistant

Export a course

node scripts/courseforge.mjs export_course '{"courseId":"xxx","format":"scorm12"}'

Formats: scorm12, scorm2004, xapi, html

Content block types

When using add_content_block, the type field accepts:

• text — Rich text/HTML content
• image — Image with URL and alt text
• video — Embedded video (YouTube, Vimeo, URL)
• quiz — Interactive quiz/assessment
• tabs — Tabbed content sections
• accordion — Collapsible sections
• callout — Highlighted callout box
• divider — Visual separator
• code — Code block with syntax highlighting
• embed — External embed (iframe)
• hotspot — Interactive image hotspot
• flashcard — Flashcard for review
• sortable — Drag-and-drop sorting activity
• timeline — Timeline visualization
• process — Step-by-step process
• labeled_graphic — Image with labels
• knowledge_check — Quick knowledge check
• scenario — Branching scenario

Notes

• All IDs are Firestore document IDs (alphanumeric strings)
• Courses have a hierarchy: Course → Modules → Lessons → Content Blocks
• The Knowledge Library stores reference documents that AI tools can use for generation
• Agentic UI Control tools require the user to have the course editor open in their browser
• Rate limits apply to AI generation tools based on the user's subscription tier