GitHub MCP App Shim

A lightweight stdio-to-http relay that enables the GitHub MCP Server to authenticate using a GitHub App instead of a Personal Access Token (PAT).

Why use this?

The official GitHub MCP server typically requires a static PAT. This shim allows your AI agent to use a GitHub App's fine-grained permissions and short-lived tokens, which is more secure for organizational use and avoids the 1-year expiration limit of standard tokens.

Related MCP server: gitbridge-mcp

Features

• Auto-Refresh: Automatically exchanges your App's Private Key for a fresh Installation Access Token every 50 minutes.

• Stdio Bridge: Acts as a local stdio server for AI clients (like Claude Desktop) while communicating with GitHub's remote MCP endpoint over https.

• Environment Driven: No secrets are hardcoded; all identifiers are passed via environment variables.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+

• A GitHub App registered in your organization with the necessary permissions (e.g., Contents: Read/Write, Metadata: Read-only).

• The App must be installed on the target organization or repositories.

Installation

1. Clone or copy the github_shim.py and pyproject.toml into a folder.

2. Install the dependencies:

   pip install .

Finding Your Credentials

Configuration

Claude Desktop

Add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json (found at ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github-app-agent": {
      "command": "github-mcp-shim",
      "env": {
        "GH_CLIENT_ID": "YOUR_CLIENT_ID",
        "GH_INSTALLATION_ID": "YOUR_INSTALL_ID",
        "GH_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH": "/absolute/path/to/your-app.private-key.pem",
        "GH_REMOTE_MCP_URL": "https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp"  // optional
      }
    }
  }
}

Security Note

Keep your .pem private key file secure. Anyone with access to this file and your Client ID can impersonate your agent and access the repositories authorized during the app installation.