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Set up the GitHub MCP server

The GitHub MCP server gives AI agents access to GitHub repositories, issues, pull requests, Actions workflows, code security findings, and more. This guide walks through creating a GitHub App, copying credentials, and connecting the server to MintMCP as a remote MCP.

GitHub MCP server repository on GitHub showing description and README

Prerequisites​

  • A MintMCP admin account
  • A GitHub account with permission to create GitHub Apps

Create a GitHub App​

  1. Go to github.com/organizations/YOUR-ORG/settings/apps/new (replace YOUR-ORG with your organization name). If you're registering under a personal account instead, go to github.com/settings/apps/new.

  2. Fill in the application details:

    FieldValue
    GitHub App nameMintMCP GitHub (or any name your team will recognize)
    Homepage URLhttps://app.mintmcp.com
    Callback URLhttps://app.mintmcp.com/oauth/callback

  3. Click Create GitHub App.

Copy the client ID and client secret​

  1. On the app's settings page, copy the Client ID.
  2. Click Generate a new client secret, then copy the secret immediately — you can't view it again after leaving this page.

Add GitHub to MintMCP​

  1. In MintMCP, go to MCP store > Manage store.
  2. Click + Add an MCP to your registry → Connect to an MCP by URL.
  3. Enter the server URL: https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/
  4. Set Connection type to Per-user credentials.
  5. Set Authorization method to OAuth.
  6. Open OAuth Client Advanced Settings and paste the Client ID and Client Secret from your GitHub App.
  7. Click Create.

Each team member authorizes with their own GitHub account on first use, so tool calls are tied to their individual GitHub identity and permissions.

Limit toolsets (optional)​

By default, the server enables five toolsets: context, repos, issues, pull_requests, and users. To enable additional toolsets or restrict to a subset, append the toolset path to the server URL:

GoalURL
Default toolsetshttps://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/
Enable all toolsetshttps://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/x/all
Specific toolsetshttps://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/x/repos,issues,actions
Read-only modehttps://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/readonly

Available additional toolsets: actions, code_security, discussions, gists, notifications, projects, secret_protection.

GitHub Enterprise​

For GitHub Enterprise Cloud with data residency (ghe.com), use a different server URL when adding the remote MCP:

https://copilot-api.{subdomain}.ghe.com/mcp

Replace {subdomain} with your organization's subdomain (for example, octocorp for octocorp.ghe.com).

GitHub Enterprise Server does not support the remote MCP server — use the Hosted Connector deployment with the Docker image ghcr.io/github/github-mcp-server and a service account PAT instead.

Security considerations​

  • The OAuth client secret authorizes MintMCP to initiate GitHub's OAuth flow on your behalf — keep it secure and regenerate it if compromised.
  • Each user authenticates with their own GitHub account, so tool calls are scoped to that user's repository access and permissions.
  • Read-only mode prevents the server from making any write operations — use the /readonly URL suffix when agents should only query data.
  • For shared service accounts or GitHub Enterprise Server, use a fine-grained PAT with minimum required scopes (repo, read:org) instead of OAuth.

Next steps​