sales-skills/sales-canva

Canva Platform Help

Canva is a broad visual-design platform. This skill focuses on the GTM/marketing surface — Brand Kit, Content Planner, and (for developers) the Connect API for automating and bulk-generating on-brand designs. It is not a design tutorial and not an idea-validation or naming tool.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask only what you can't infer from the user's prompt:

1. What are you trying to do? (a) Automate/integrate via the Connect API · (b) Bulk-generate designs from a template · (c) Set up Brand Kit / keep designs on-brand · (d) Schedule social posts (Content Planner) · (e) Pick a plan / compare Canva vs alternatives · (f) Troubleshoot something.
2. Are you on Free, Pro, Teams/Business, or Enterprise? (This decides whether the automation you want is even available — Autofill and the Brand-Template API are Enterprise-gated.)
3. If integrating: are you doing it server-side? (OAuth token exchange can't run in a browser.)

Skip-ahead: if the prompt already contains enough context (e.g. "how do I export a design to PDF via the API"), go straight to Step 3.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

Canva touches several problem domains other skills own. Route when the question is really about the domain, not Canva-specific config:

• Choosing/using a social scheduler, content calendar strategy, or comparing Canva Content Planner vs Buffer/Later/Hootsuite → /sales-social-media-management
• Validating whether the idea is worth building before you design a brand for it → /sales-idea-validation
• Generating a business/product name from scratch → /sales-namelix
• Generating a logo / brand-identity kit from scratch → /sales-brandmark
• Building the actual landing page / funnel (Canva Websites is thin for this) → /sales-funnel

When routing, give the exact command: "This is a {domain} question — run: /sales-{skill} {user's original question}".

Step 3 — Canva platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — capabilities + automation surface, pricing/plan gates, data model, quick-start recipes (export, autofill, asset upload), and integration patterns. For raw API detail (OAuth/PKCE flow, scopes, endpoints, autofill/export JSON, MCP config) read references/canva-api-reference.md.

Answer using only the relevant section — don't dump the whole guide.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

• Lead with the plan gate. Before proposing any autofill/brand-template automation, state that Autofill and the Brand-Template API require Canva Enterprise (or a granted dev-access request in the Developer Portal; non-enterprise trials get only a limited number of autofill runs). Don't design a workflow around it without flagging this first.
• Present all pricing and plan names as best-effort and point to canva.com/pricing — note Teams/Business is per-seat with a recently increased minimum.
• For any Connect API answer, keep the token exchange server-side and note it's OAuth 2.0 auth-code + PKCE (S256); call out that refresh tokens are single-use so the new one must be persisted on every refresh.
• For autofill, walk the full workflow: first query the brand template's dataset (GET /brand-templates/{id}/dataset) to learn its fields, then create one autofill job per row and poll each job until it completes. For both autofill and export, describe the async job + poll pattern with exponential backoff, not a single synchronous call.
• Separate the two "bulk" features: Data Autofill = API (Enterprise); Bulk Create = editor UI + CSV. Don't conflate them.
• Content Planner is UI-only — if the user wants to schedule posts programmatically, tell them there's no Connect API for it and route social-scheduling strategy to /sales-social-media-management.
• When comparing Canva to alternatives, name concrete ones (Adobe Express, Visme, VistaCreate, Figma) and tie the choice to the user's need, not features in the abstract.

If you discover a gotcha or tip not in references/learnings.md, append it there with today's date.

Gotchas

Best-effort from research (2026-07) — review these, especially plan-gated features and integration details that may be outdated.

• Autofill + Brand-Template APIs are Enterprise-gated. The integration must act for a Canva Enterprise member. Without Enterprise you can request dev access in the Developer Portal, but trial autofill runs are capped. This is the #1 reason a "bulk-generate from a spreadsheet" plan stalls.
• Refresh tokens are single-use. Each refresh returns a new access token and a new refresh token — persist the new refresh token or the integration locks out.
• OAuth token exchange can't run in a browser (CORS) — the client_id:client_secret Basic-auth call must be server-side.
• Brand-template IDs migrated (Sept 2025) to a new format; old IDs accepted for a ~6-month grace period — migrate stored IDs.
• Content Planner has no API — social scheduling is UI-only and Pro+.
• Export/autofill are async — poll the job (in_progress → success/failed) with exponential backoff; export download URLs are time-limited.
• Canva is not a validator or a name/logo generator — it's where you make creative after the idea, name, and logo exist.

Related skills

• /sales-social-media-management — Social scheduling strategy + tool comparison; where Canva's Content Planner fits vs Buffer/Later/Hootsuite
• /sales-namelix — Generate the business/product name (before you design a brand for it in Canva)
• /sales-brandmark — Generate a logo / brand-identity kit from scratch
• /sales-manypixels — The "hire it out" counterpart: a flat-monthly unlimited-request human design service (design-as-a-service) for when you'd rather brief a designer than make the creative yourself in Canva
• /sales-idea-validation — Validate demand before you spend time on brand creative
• /sales-funnel — Build the real landing page / smoke test (Canva Websites is thin for this)
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1 — "I want to auto-generate 200 on-brand social graphics from a Google Sheet"

Explain the Data Autofill workflow (query the brand template dataset → create an autofill job per row → poll → export each design), but lead with the Enterprise gate: Autofill + Brand-Template APIs need a Canva Enterprise member (or a dev-access grant), and image fields need an uploaded asset_id. Distinguish this from the UI Bulk Create (CSV) feature, which works on Pro without the API.

Example 2 — "How do I export a Canva design to PDF from my backend?"

Walk through the Create design export job (async): POST /v1/exports with design_id + format, poll GET /v1/exports/{jobId} with exponential backoff, then fetch the time-limited download URL. Note it needs design:content:read and a server-side Bearer token.

Example 3 — "Should I use Canva or something else for our team's marketing creative?"

Ask team size and needs. Contrast Canva (breadth, templates, Brand Kit, Content Planner — but per-seat pricing recently increased) with alternatives (Adobe Express for Adobe-ecosystem/Firefly, Visme for data-viz/infographics, VistaCreate for a generous free tier, Figma for real vector/design-system work). Present prices as best-effort → canva.com/pricing.

Troubleshooting

"The Autofill API returns an error / says I need Enterprise"

Autofill and the Brand-Template API require the acting user to be a Canva Enterprise member. Options: upgrade to Enterprise, or request access for a genuine dev use case when configuring the integration in the Developer Portal (trial autofill runs are limited). If you only need one-off bulk output, use the UI Bulk Create (CSV) feature on Pro instead.

"My integration stopped working / refresh returns invalid_grant"

Refresh tokens are single-use. If you reused an old refresh token (or didn't persist the new one from the last refresh response), it's now invalid — re-run the OAuth authorize flow to get a fresh token pair, and fix storage to overwrite the refresh token on every refresh. Also confirm the token exchange runs server-side (browser calls are CORS-blocked).

"My stored brand-template IDs suddenly 404 / autofill can't find the template"

Brand templates migrated to a new ID format in September 2025; the old IDs are honored only for a ~6-month grace window. Re-list brand templates to fetch current IDs and update anything you persisted. Also confirm the token carries brandtemplate:meta:read / brandtemplate:content:read.