GitHub Discovery MCP Server

An MCP server that helps Claude find relevant open-source GitHub repositories for research, learning, or a project you're building — and then dig into a specific repo's structure, code, history, and branches once you've found it worth a closer look.

What it does

Discovery — find repos from a description or topic:

• search_github_repos(query, filters) — free-text search, ranked by a blend of stars and recent activity so an actively maintained project can beat a similarly popular but abandoned one

• search_by_topic(topic, filters) — search by GitHub's curated topic tags (e.g. rag, llm-agent) instead of free text

• get_trending_repos(since, filters) — repos created recently that are already gaining stars fast, as an approximation of "trending" (GitHub's API has no official trending endpoint)

Inspection — once you've picked a repo, look inside it:

• get_repo_overview(repo) — description, stars/forks/issues, license, topics, language breakdown, latest release, approx. contributor count, and a README preview

• get_repo_structure(repo, path) — browse the file tree one directory at a time

• get_file_content(repo, path) — read a specific file's contents

• get_recent_commits(repo, branch, limit) — recent commit history

• list_branches(repo, limit) — branches and what each currently points to

Comparison — deciding between a few candidates:

• compare_repos(repos) — 2-4 repos side by side as a table (stars, forks, issues, license, language, contributors, age, activity)

All the repo parameters above accept either "owner/name" or a full GitHub URL — you can paste the full_name/URL straight out of a search result.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or later

• No GitHub account or API key required for light use — see Rate limits for when you'll want one

Install & run

git clone https://github.com/Hemanth-hexo/Git_mcp.git
cd Git_mcp
npm install

Run it directly (it will sit waiting for a client on stdin/stdout — that's expected):

npm start

To try it interactively in a browser without wiring it into Claude Desktop yet, use the MCP Inspector:

npm run inspect

This opens a local web UI where you can call any of the tools by hand and see the raw result.

Add to Claude Desktop

Edit Claude Desktop's config file:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add an entry under mcpServers (create the file/object if it doesn't exist), using the absolute path to server.js on your machine — run pwd inside the cloned folder to get it, then append /server.js. Setting GITHUB_TOKEN here too is strongly recommended once you use the inspection/comparison tools — see Rate limits:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github-discovery": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/Git_mcp/server.js"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

For example, if you cloned into your home directory, the path would look like /Users/yourname/Git_mcp/server.js (macOS/Linux) or C:\\Users\\yourname\\Git_mcp\\server.js (Windows). GITHUB_TOKEN is optional — omit the env block entirely to run without one.

Restart Claude Desktop. You should see "github-discovery" listed as a connected MCP server (check the 🔌/tools icon in the app), with all 9 tools available.

Example prompts

Once connected, just talk to Claude naturally:

• "Find me RAG implementation repos"

• "Show me containerization examples in Go"

• "What's trending in agent frameworks this week?"

• "Find repos tagged with vector-database"

• "Give me an overview of huggingface/transformers"

• "What's the file structure of that repo look like?"

• "Show me the recent commits on it"

• "Compare langchain, llamaindex, and haystack for me"

Rate limits

GitHub's REST API has two separate rate-limit buckets, and this server's tools split across both:

The search bucket is generous enough for casual interactive use. The core bucket is not — it resets hourly, not per-minute, and some tools spend more than one request per call (get_repo_overview makes up to 4, compare_repos makes 2 per repo compared). If you plan to use the inspection or comparison tools more than a few times an hour, set a token:

1. Create one at github.com/settings/tokens (classic token, no scopes needed — this server only reads public data)

2. Add it as GITHUB_TOKEN in the Claude Desktop config's env block (shown above), or export it in your shell before running npm start/npm run inspect locally

If a rate limit is hit, the server returns a clear message (instead of failing silently) telling you when it resets.

Project files

• server.js — entry point; wires up the MCP server and registers all tool groups

• tools/discovery.js — search_github_repos, search_by_topic, get_trending_repos

• tools/inspect.js — get_repo_overview, get_repo_structure, get_file_content, get_recent_commits, list_branches

• tools/compare.js — compare_repos

• lib/github.js — shared GitHub API client, auth header injection, rate-limit/error handling

• lib/format.js — shared formatting helpers (relative dates, repo-ref parsing, truncation)

• package.json — dependencies (@modelcontextprotocol/server, zod)