MCP Servers Tab

The MCP Servers tab displays all configured Model Context Protocol servers that extend Copilot CLI with external tools.

Columns

Column	Description
Name	Server identifier
Transport	stdio or http
Status	Connection state
Command / URL	Executable command (stdio) or endpoint URL (http)

Detail Pane

Selecting a server shows its full configuration:

• Name and transport type
• Command and args (for stdio servers)
• URL (for HTTP servers)
• Environment variables passed to the server process

Actions

Key	Action	Description
a	Add	Add a new MCP server definition.
x	Remove	Remove the selected server from configuration.

How It Works

Server definitions are read from ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json. Each entry specifies:

• A name used as the server identifier
• A transport type — either stdio (launches a local process) or http (connects to a remote endpoint)
• For stdio: the command to run and its args
• For HTTP: the URL to connect to
• Optional environment variables injected into the server's process

Health Probing with copilot-setup doctor

The copilot-setup doctor command probes each configured server to verify connectivity:

• stdio servers — Launches the command and sends an MCP initialize request, then waits for a valid response.
• HTTP servers — Sends an HTTP POST to the server's URL with an initialize payload.

Servers that respond correctly are marked healthy; failures are reported with error details.

OAuth Note

caution

HTTP servers declared inside plugins may not automatically trigger OAuth authentication flows. If a plugin-bundled HTTP server requires OAuth and you see authentication errors, refer to the Troubleshooting page for workarounds.