Ellucian Colleague MCP Server & Agent Skill

What is the Ellucian Colleague API, and what can an agent read from it?

Ethos Integration proxies Ethos Data Model (EEDM) REST resources and Ethos GraphQL to Colleague and delivers change notifications from a subscriber queue at /consume. Ellucian's examples use the same calls for Colleague and Banner.

• API: Ellucian Ethos Integration (Ethos Data Model APIs, Ethos GraphQL, Data Connect) (Mixed)
• Access: Issued by your administrator
• Base URL: https://integrate.elluciancloud.com/api/{resource}
• Authentication: API key exchanged for a JWT bearer token

The institution connects Colleague to Ethos Integration, creates an application, grants it resources and issues its API key. Outside developers obtain the key from the institution.

Exchange the application's API key at /auth for a JWT access token and send it as Authorization: Bearer. Tokens expire after 5 minutes; an expired token returns 401 Unauthorized.

What can an agent read from Ellucian Colleague?

• Ethos Data Model resources — GET /api/{resource} or /api/{resource}/{id}, e.g. persons; filter with ?filter= and page with offset and limit.
• Ethos GraphQL — Returns related objects in one call, e.g. a person's classes for today.
• Change notifications — GET /consume?lastProcessedID=&limit= reads messages from the application's subscriber queue.
• Data Connect serverless APIs — Institution-built Ethos Data Connect APIs; Ellucian's examples call them for account details and emergency contacts.
• Available resources — GET /available-resources and /appconfig list what the application is configured to use.

What can an agent write to Ellucian Colleague?

• Create or update records — POST and PUT to /api/{resource} create or update records the application is authorized to change.
• Delete records — DELETE /api/{resource}/{id} on resources that support deletion. Confirm with the user first.
• Ethos error records — Create, read and delete entries in the Ethos errors service at /errors.

Limits: Paging uses offset and limit; the maximum page size varies by resource and Ellucian's SDK reads it per resource. Ellucian warns against fetching all pages of a resource in one request. No request-rate limit was found in public docs.

Colleague holds FERPA education records and may hold financial and employee data. Grant the Ethos application only the resources a task needs.

How do I connect Ellucian Colleague to an AI agent over MCP?

As of October 2026 we found no MCP server published by Ellucian itself.

The practical path is to host a small MCP server that wraps the Ellucian Ethos Integration (Ethos Data Model APIs, Ethos GraphQL, Data Connect), or to give the agent the calls directly with the SKILL.md below.

On ibl.ai an MCP connection is three records, and a working integration always needs all three:

1. Register the server — POST …/mcp-servers/ with its URL, a transport (sse, websocket or streamable_http) and an auth_type of none, token or oauth2.
2. Create a connection that holds the credential, scoped to the whole organization (platform), to a single agent, or to each user (user).
3. Enable it on the agent — mcp-tool in tool_slugs and the server id in mcp_servers. Both lists are replaced, not merged, so read the settings first.

For an API key or a service credential, one token connection at platform scope serves the whole organization; scope a connection to a single agent when that agent needs narrower access than the rest.

The field reference is in MCP server connections, and the /iblai-api-agent-mcp skill runs all three steps from a coding agent.

What does the Ellucian Colleague agent skill do?

The Ellucian Colleague skill is one SKILL.md file named iblai-connect-ellucian-colleague. It gives an agent the auth conventions, what to read, which writes need a person's confirmation, the ibl.ai MCP wiring, example prompts and guardrails.

Download the Ellucian Colleague SKILL.md

Save it as .claude/skills/iblai-connect-ellucian-colleague/SKILL.md, or in your agent's skills folder. The ibl.ai platform skills it calls come from one install:

This connector skill is a starting point maintained on ibl.ai, not part of the iblai/vibe repository.

It was checked against Ellucian's documentation on October 20, 2026. Test it against your own Ellucian Colleague setup before you rely on it.

What can I ask an Ellucian Colleague agent to do?

• “Look up this student's person record and preferred email in Colleague”
• “List the classes I teach today”
• “Pull new change notifications for person records since the last processed ID”
• “Show the emergency contacts on file for this student”

How do I run an Ellucian Colleague agent on ibl.ai?

Agentic OS is where the agent runs on ibl.ai: it holds the Ellucian Colleague MCP connection, the model the agent uses, its instructions and its conversation history.

On ibl.ai you own all the code and the data, run it model-agnostic across any LLM, and pay with no per-seat pricing — so you can deploy anywhere, from your own cloud to a fully air-gapped network.

• AI agents for Higher Education — what ibl.ai deploys in this sector

Which ibl.ai agents work with Ellucian Colleague data?

• Student Life Guide — Higher Education
• Financial Aid Advisor — Higher Education
• Academic Advisor — Higher Education

Which ibl.ai platform skills does an Ellucian Colleague agent use?

• /iblai-api-agent-mcp — MCP connectors for ibl.ai agents, end to end
• /iblai-vibe-agent-mcp — Add the agent MCP tab (Model Context Protocol connector management with featured connectors, custom connectors, OAuth,…
• /iblai-api-agent-tool — Enable or disable an ibl.ai agent's tools via the platform API

What else should I know before connecting Ellucian Colleague to an AI agent?

Which other data sources can an AI agent connect to alongside Ellucian Colleague?

Which other Higher Education systems have a connector?

• 1EdTech OneRoster — Rostering and gradebook data standard
• Blackboard Learn — Learning management system
• Canvas LMS — Learning management system
• D2L Brightspace — Learning management system
• EAB Navigate360 — Student success CRM
• Ellucian Banner — Student information system / ERP
• Encoura Reach (Anthology Reach) — Higher-education CRM
• Handshake — Career services and early-career recruiting platform
• Jenzabar One — Higher education ERP and student information system
• Moodle LMS — Learning management system
• PeopleSoft Campus Solutions — Student information system
• Raiser's Edge NXT — Fundraising and donor CRM
• Salesforce Education Cloud — Education CRM
• Slate — Admissions CRM
• Workday Student — Student information system

Every connector, grouped by sector, is on the connectors hub.