GitHub MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for GitHub, implemented in Go. This server allows LLMs to interact with GitHub repositories, issues, pull requests, and more through a standardized interface.

Features

Comprehensive GitHub API Access: See Tools below
Setup Command: Easy automatic setup for AI assistants
- --auto-approve allows to pre-fill the auto-approval checkbox
- --write-access enables write access for remote operations
- Copies the binary into a stable location
- Updates the tool MCP server config (cline and claude-desktop are supported)
Security Controls:
- Write access is disabled by default for safety
- Fine-grained auto-approval options

Planned Features

"get_diff"
- diff between two commits
- ? Should this be in the output of compare_commits?

Installation

Prerequisites

GitHub Personal Access Token with appropriate permissions

Using Pre-built Binaries

You can download pre-built binaries for your platform from the GitHub Releases page.

# Download the latest release - for "linux_amd64" in this case
RELEASE="$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/geropl/github-mcp-go/releases/latest)"
DOWNLOAD_URL="$(echo $RELEASE | jq -r '.assets[] | select(.name | contains("linux_amd64")) | .browser_download_url')"
curl -L -o ./github-mcp-go $DOWNLOAD_URL
chmod +x ./github-mcp-go

# Setup the mcp server (can be called in .gitpod.yml, dotfiles repo, etc.)
./github-mcp-go setup --write-access="${GITHUB_MCP_WRITE_ACCESS:-false}" --auto-approve=allow-read-only || true
rm -f ./github-mcp-go

Building from Source

If you prefer to build from source:

# Prerequisites: Go 1.23 or later

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/geropl/github-mcp-go.git
cd github-mcp-go

# Build the server
go build -o github-mcp-go .

Usage

Environment Variables

The server requires a GitHub Personal Access Token to authenticate with the GitHub API:

export GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN=your_token_here

Setup

The server includes a convenient setup command to install and configure the MCP server for use with AI assistants:

# Set up for Cline with auto-approval for read-only tools
./github-mcp-go setup --auto-approve allow-read-only --tool cline

# Set up for Claude Desktop with auto-approval for specific tools
./github-mcp-go setup --auto-approve search_repositories,get_file_contents --tool claude-desktop

# Set up with write access enabled
./github-mcp-go setup --write-access --tool cline

# Show setup help
./github-mcp-go setup --help

Running the Server

# Run the server directly (read-only mode)
./github-mcp-go serve

# Run the server with write access enabled
./github-mcp-go serve --write-access

# Show help
./github-mcp-go --help

Auto-Approval Options

The --auto-approve flag can be used to specify which tools should be auto-approved as a comma-separated list. allow-read-only is a special value to add all read-only tools to the auto-approve list (safe, no state changes).

The --write-access flag enables write access for remote operations. This allows tools that modify remote repositories to be used. By default, write access is disabled for safety.

Available Tools

Repository Tools

search_repositories: Search for GitHub repositories
create_repository: Create a new GitHub repository
fork_repository: Fork a GitHub repository

Pull Request Tools

create_pull_request: Create a new pull request
get_pull_request: Get detailed information about a pull request
get_pull_request_diff: Get the diff of a pull request

File Tools

get_file_contents: Get the contents of a file or directory
create_or_update_file: Create or update a file
push_files: Push multiple files in a single commit

Issue Tools

create_issue: Create a new issue
list_issues: List issues with filtering options
update_issue: Update an existing issue
add_issue_comment: Add a comment to an issue
get_issue: Get details of a specific issue
list_issue_comments: List comments on an issue

Branch Tools

list_branches: List branches in a repository
get_branch: Get details about a specific branch
create_branch: Create a new branch
merge_branches: Merge one branch into another
delete_branch: Delete a branch

Commit Tools

get_commit: Get details of a specific commit
list_commits: List commits in a repository
compare_commits: Compare two commits or branches
get_commit_status: Get the combined status for a specific commit
create_commit_comment: Add a comment to a specific commit
list_commit_comments: List comments for a specific commit
create_commit: Create a new commit directly

Search Tools

search_code: Search for code across repositories
search_issues: Search for issues and pull requests
search_commits: Search for commits across repositories

GitHub Actions Tools

list_workflows: List all workflows in a repository
get_workflow: Get detailed information about a specific workflow
list_workflow_runs: List workflow runs for a repository or specific workflow
get_workflow_run: Get detailed information about a specific workflow run
download_workflow_run_logs: Download and process logs for a workflow run
list_workflow_jobs: List jobs for a workflow run
get_workflow_job: Get detailed information about a specific job

Releases

The project follows Semantic Versioning. New releases are automatically built and published to GitHub Releases when a new tag is pushed to the repository.

For detailed instructions on creating a new release, see RELEASE.md.

Available Platforms

Pre-built binaries are available for:

Linux (amd64, arm64)
macOS (amd64, arm64)
Windows (amd64)

Development

Testing

The project uses table-driven tests with go-vcr for recording HTTP interactions:

go test ./...

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

GitHub