EdStem

Fetch and organize EdStem discussion threads from any course or institution with automatic staff/student differentiation.

Quick Start

Fetch recent threads for any course:

cd /home/axel/.openclaw/workspace/skills/edstem/scripts
python3 fetch-edstem.py <course_id> [output_dir] [--course-name "Course Name"]

Examples:

# Fetch to default directory (./edstem-<course_id>)
python3 fetch-edstem.py 92041

# Fetch to specific directory
python3 fetch-edstem.py 92041 ./machine-learning

# Specify course name for clearer output
python3 fetch-edstem.py 92041 --course-name "Machine Learning"

# Combine directory and course name
python3 fetch-edstem.py 92041 ./ml-course --course-name "Machine Learning"

# Fetch more threads (default is 10)
python3 fetch-edstem.py 92041 --limit 25

Finding Your Course ID

To find your EdStem course ID:

1. Log into EdStem and navigate to your course
2. Look at the URL: https://edstem.org/us/courses/<course_id>/
3. The number in the URL is your course ID

Alternatively, use the API to list your courses:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" https://us.edstem.org/api/user | jq '.courses[] | {id: .course.id, name: .course.name}'

What Gets Fetched

For each course:

• threads.json - Full thread list with metadata
• thread-XXX.md - Individual threads formatted as markdown
  • Thread title, category, timestamps
  • Original post content
  • All answers and comments
  • [STAFF] or [STUDENT] tags on every post

Features

• Institution-agnostic: Works with any school using EdStem
• Staff differentiation: Clearly marks instructor/TA posts vs student posts
• Structured output: Markdown format for easy reading and searching
• API-based: Uses EdStem's official API (no scraping)
• Flexible output: Choose your own output directory and organization scheme

Authentication

The skill uses a bearer token stored in the Python script. To use with your own account:

1. Log into EdStem in your browser
2. Open Developer Tools → Network tab
3. Reload any EdStem page
4. Find an API request and copy the Authorization: Bearer ... token
5. Update ED_TOKEN in scripts/fetch-edstem.py

Current token location: Line 20 in scripts/fetch-edstem.py

If API calls fail (401 Unauthorized), your token likely expired and needs refresh.

Scripts

fetch-edstem.py (recommended)

Full-featured Python script with markdown formatting and staff/student differentiation.

Usage:

python3 scripts/fetch-edstem.py <course_id> [output_dir] [options]

Options:

• output_dir - Where to save threads (default: ./edstem-<course_id>)
• --course-name NAME - Display name for the course
• --limit N - Number of threads to fetch (default: 10)