Configuring toolsets for the GitHub MCP Server

Learn how to configure toolsets and tools for the GitHub MCP server for fine-grained control and optimized performance.

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The GitHub MCP server includes default toolsets (repos, issues, and pull_requests) that are enabled automatically. You can customize toolset configuration by:

  • Enabling individual toolsets such as actions, code_security, or secret_protection
  • Using special keywords like all to enable every available toolset, or default to include the standard set alongside others (for example, default,stargazers)
  • Accessing remote-only toolsets such as copilot (for Copilot-Programmier-Agent) and github_support_docs_search, which are only available on the remote MCP server
  • Selecting specific tools for granular control when you want to exclude specific tools or combine toolsets with individual tools

For a complete list of available toolsets, see Tools in the github/github-mcp-server repository. For configuration examples, see Server configuration. For a full introduction to the GitHub MCP server and an overview of MCP, see Informationen zum Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Configuring toolsets for the remote MCP server

You can configure toolsets for the remote GitHub MCP server using:

  • URL path parameters when enabling a single toolset
  • HTTP headers when enabling multiple toolsets

For detailed setup instructions, see Remote GitHub MCP server and Remote server configuration in the github/github-mcp-server repository.

Configuring toolsets for the local MCP server

You can configure toolsets for the local GitHub MCP server using:

  • Command-line flags
  • Environment variables (these take precedence over command-line flags)

For detailed setup instructions, see Local GitHub MCP server and Tool configuration in the github/github-mcp-server repository.

Further reading