GitHub Issue MCP Server

A small Model Context Protocol server for working with GitHub issues from MCP-compatible clients.

It exposes GitHub Issue operations as structured MCP tools over stdio. The server does not store data locally; every tool call goes through the GitHub REST API.

Features

• List repository issues
• Get one issue
• Search issues with GitHub search syntax
• Create issues
• Comment on issues
• Update title, body, labels, assignees, milestone, and state
• Add labels without replacing existing labels
• Remove a label

Requirements

• Node.js 20+
• A GitHub token in GITHUB_TOKEN

For private repositories or write operations, create a fine-grained personal access token with the minimum repository permissions you need:

• Issues: read/write
• Metadata: read

Install

npm install
npm run build

Run Locally

$env:GITHUB_TOKEN = "github_pat_..."
npm run dev

The server speaks MCP over stdio, so it is usually launched by an MCP client instead of run by hand.

MCP Client Config

Example config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github-issues": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["C:\\Users\\you\\github-issue-mcp-server\\dist\\index.js"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "github_pat_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

For GitHub Enterprise Server, set GITHUB_API_URL:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github-issues": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["C:\\Users\\you\\github-issue-mcp-server\\dist\\index.js"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "github_pat_...",
        "GITHUB_API_URL": "https://github.example.com/api/v3"
      }
    }
  }
}

Tools

list_issues

Lists issues for a repository. GitHub's issues API also returns pull requests, so this tool filters pull requests out by default.

{
  "owner": "modelcontextprotocol",
  "repo": "typescript-sdk",
  "state": "open",
  "labels": ["bug"],
  "per_page": 20
}

get_issue

Gets one issue by number.

{
  "owner": "owner",
  "repo": "repo",
  "issue_number": 123
}

search_issues

Searches issues using GitHub's search query syntax.

{
  "q": "repo:owner/repo is:issue is:open label:bug updated:>=2026-06-01",
  "per_page": 10
}

create_issue

Creates a new issue.

{
  "owner": "owner",
  "repo": "repo",
  "title": "Login fails on expired session",
  "body": "Steps to reproduce...",
  "labels": ["bug"]
}

comment_issue

Adds a comment.

{
  "owner": "owner",
  "repo": "repo",
  "issue_number": 123,
  "body": "Thanks for the report. I can reproduce this on main."
}

update_issue

Updates issue fields or state.

{
  "owner": "owner",
  "repo": "repo",
  "issue_number": 123,
  "state": "closed",
  "state_reason": "completed"
}

add_labels

Adds labels without replacing existing labels.

{
  "owner": "owner",
  "repo": "repo",
  "issue_number": 123,
  "labels": ["triaged", "help wanted"]
}

remove_label

Removes one label.

{
  "owner": "owner",
  "repo": "repo",
  "issue_number": 123,
  "label": "needs reproduction"
}

Development

npm run typecheck
npm run build

Avoid logging to stdout because MCP stdio transport uses stdout for protocol messages. Use stderr for diagnostics.