mackenzie-github

The GitHub MCP Server provides a suite of MCP tools that interface with the GitHub REST APIs, enabling automated interactions with repositories, issues, comments, and user data. It runs inside a container (Docker) and expects a GitHub Personal Access Token with appropriate permissions supplied at runtime. Tools exposed by the server include getting information about the authenticated user, fetching and manipulating issues, comments on issues, and searching across issues. You can use these tools from compatible MCP clients (for example, VS Code in agent mode or Claude Desktop) by configuring the server under the mcpServers section and providing your GitHub token as an environment variable.

Prerequisites:\n- Docker installed on your machine.\n- A GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) with the permissions you need for your automation (read/write on repositories, issues, comments, etc.).\n\nManual Docker installation (recommended):\n1) Create a PAT on GitHub and copy it.\n2) Start the MCP server via Docker using the token as an environment variable. For example:\n\nbash\ndocker run -it --rm -e GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN=<YOUR_TOKEN> ghcr.io/github/github-mcp-server\n````\nThis invokes the GitHub MCP server container with your token. The server will expose its MCP endpoints to the host environment where the container runs.\n\nAlternative: Using the VS Code or Claude Desktop configuration as provided in the README.\n\nBuild from source (no Docker):\nIf you don't want to use Docker, you can build the binary locally and run it with the token set in the environment:\n\nbash\ngo version\n# Build from the cmd/github-mcp-server directory\ngo build -o github-mcp-server ./cmd/github-mcp-server\nGITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN=<YOUR_TOKEN> ./github-mcp-server stdio\n```

Notes and tips:\n- If you use GitHub Enterprise Server, you can set the host with the --gh-host flag or the GH_HOST environment variable.\n- The tool descriptions can be overridden via github-mcp-server-config.json or environment variables prefixed with GITHUB_MCP_.\n- When using the Docker deployment, ensure that the GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN you provide has the necessary scopes for your tasks (e.g., repo, read:org, issues, contents).\n- The server supports common MCP clients such as VS Code (agent mode) and Claude Desktop; use the examples in the README to configure either client.\n- If you plan to run multiple servers or different tokens, you can create separate mcpServer entries with distinct server keys (e.g., github, github-prod).