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The built in GitHub MCP Server is not loaded in -p mode #289

Description

@williammartin

Description

➜  sweagentd git:(main) ✗ copilot -p "show me the 10 most recent issues in cli/cli repo"
● I'll fetch the 10 most recent issues from the cli/cli repository using the GitHub CLI.

Get 10 most recent issues from cli/cli repo
   $ gh issue list --repo cli/cli --limit 10 --json number,title,state,createdAt,author --jq '.[] |
   "\(.number) | \(.state) | \(.createdAt) | @\(.author.login) | \(.title)"'
   Permission denied and could not request permission from user
● Let me try without authentication by using the API directly:

Fetch 10 most recent issues from cli/cli using GitHub API
   $ curl -s "https://api.github.com/repos/cli/cli/issues?per_page=10&sort=created&direction=desc" |
    jq -r '.[] | "#\(.number) | \(.state) | \(.created_at) | @\(.user.login) | \(.title)"'
   Permission denied and could not request permission from user
● I don't have permission to access the network or the GitHub CLI with authentication. You'll need
    to run this command yourself:

  ...snipped


Total usage est:       1 Premium request
Total duration (API):  13.8s
Total duration (wall): 16.0s
Total code changes:    0 lines added, 0 lines removed
Usage by model:
    claude-sonnet-4.5    21.1k input, 486 output, 15.4k cache read, 5.7k cache write (Est. 1 Premium request)

This should be using the MCP server. If you check the logs with --log-level all, you will see that the GitHub MCP server is not being provided at all.

Affected version

0.0.340-4 Commit: acb943f

Steps to reproduce the behavior

No response

Expected behavior

No response

Additional context

No response

Activity

  1. ellismg commented on Oct 17, 2025

    @ellismg
    Contributor

    I merged a fix for this and it should ship in 0.0.344 when it releases later today.

  2. ellismg commented on Nov 3, 2025

    @ellismg
    Contributor

    This should now be fixed, and I see that being the case on the latest copilot:

    % copilot --version       
    0.0.353
    Commit: f8fd3e3
    % copilot -p "tell me what tools from the github-mcp-server you have access to (tool names only)"
    Here are the GitHub MCP server tools I have access to:
    
    1. get_commit
    2. get_file_contents
    3. get_job_logs
    4. get_workflow_run
    5. get_workflow_run_logs
    6. list_branches
    7. list_commits
    8. list_issues
    9. list_pull_requests
    10. list_workflow_runs
    11. list_workflows
    12. pull_request_read
    13. search_code
    14. search_issues
    15. search_pull_requests
    16. search_repositories
    17. search_users
    18. web_search
    
    
    Total usage est:       1 Premium request
    Total duration (API):  4.2s
    Total duration (wall): 9.2s
    Total code changes:    0 lines added, 0 lines removed
    Usage by model:
        claude-sonnet-4.5    13.3k input, 142 output, 0 cache read, 0 cache write (Est. 1 Premium request)
    
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