Azure DevOps MCP Server with PAT Authentication

Instructions

Implementation Reference

• src/tools/repos.ts:491-501 (handler)

  The handler function for the 'repo_list_branches_by_repo' tool. It retrieves all refs from the specified repository using the Azure DevOps Git API, filters and sorts the branch names (excluding non-head refs and limiting to top N), and returns them as JSON.

      const connection = await connectionProvider();
      const gitApi = await connection.getGitApi();
      const branches = await gitApi.getRefs(repositoryId, undefined);
  
      const filteredBranches = branchesFilterOutIrrelevantProperties(branches, top);
  
      return {
        content: [{ type: "text", text: JSON.stringify(filteredBranches, null, 2) }],
      };
    }
  );

• src/tools/repos.ts:487-490 (schema)

  Zod schema defining the input parameters for the tool: repositoryId (required string) and top (optional number, default 100).

    repositoryId: z.string().describe("The ID of the repository where the branches are located."),
    top: z.number().default(100).describe("The maximum number of branches to return. Defaults to 100."),
  },
  async ({ repositoryId, top }) => {

• src/tools/repos.ts:25-44 (registration)

  The REPO_TOOLS constant maps internal function names to external tool names, including 'list_branches_by_repo' to 'repo_list_branches_by_repo'. This is used in server.tool calls for registration.

  const REPO_TOOLS = {
    list_repos_by_project: "repo_list_repos_by_project",
    list_pull_requests_by_repo: "repo_list_pull_requests_by_repo",
    list_pull_requests_by_project: "repo_list_pull_requests_by_project",
    list_branches_by_repo: "repo_list_branches_by_repo",
    list_my_branches_by_repo: "repo_list_my_branches_by_repo",
    list_pull_request_threads: "repo_list_pull_request_threads",
    list_pull_request_thread_comments: "repo_list_pull_request_thread_comments",
    get_repo_by_name_or_id: "repo_get_repo_by_name_or_id",
    get_branch_by_name: "repo_get_branch_by_name",
    get_pull_request_by_id: "repo_get_pull_request_by_id",
    create_pull_request: "repo_create_pull_request",
    update_pull_request: "repo_update_pull_request",
    update_pull_request_reviewers: "repo_update_pull_request_reviewers",
    reply_to_comment: "repo_reply_to_comment",
    create_pull_request_thread: "repo_create_pull_request_thread",
    resolve_comment: "repo_resolve_comment",
    search_commits: "repo_search_commits",
    list_pull_requests_by_commits: "repo_list_pull_requests_by_commits",
  };

• src/tools/repos.ts:484-486 (registration)

  The server.tool registration call for the tool, specifying the tool name (via REPO_TOOLS), description, schema, and handler.

  REPO_TOOLS.list_branches_by_repo,
  "Retrieve a list of branches for a given repository.",
  {

• src/tools/repos.ts:46-52 (helper)

  Helper function used by the handler to filter Git refs to only branch names (refs/heads/), strip the prefix, sort descending, and limit to top N.

  function branchesFilterOutIrrelevantProperties(branches: GitRef[], top: number) {
    return branches
      ?.flatMap((branch) => (branch.name ? [branch.name] : []))
      ?.filter((branch) => branch.startsWith("refs/heads/"))
      .map((branch) => branch.replace("refs/heads/", ""))
      .sort((a, b) => b.localeCompare(a))
      .slice(0, top);