🚀 Gists MCP Server - Your AI's Code Memory!

Transform GitHub Gists into your AI assistant's personal code snippet library! 🧠💾 (this readme totally wasn't written by Claude 😂)

Ever found yourself searching through GitHub repos and thinking "Wow, this code is gold!" only to lose it in your browser history? Or maybe you're tired of copy-pasting code between ChatGPT sessions?

Welcome to the future of AI-assisted development! 🎉

🌟 What Makes This Special?

This MCP server turns Claude into your intelligent code librarian who can:

• 📥 Save brilliant code you discover anywhere on GitHub directly to YOUR gists

• 🔍 Instantly retrieve that authentication implementation you saved 3 months ago

• 📝 Update and refine your code collection as you learn better patterns

• 🗂️ Organize snippets with descriptive names that make sense to both you AND your AI

• 🔐 Keep sensitive code private or share useful utilities publicly

• 🚫 No more local file clutter - everything lives in the cloud!

💡 Real-World Magic

Imagine this workflow:

1. You: "Claude, search GitHub for the best React authentication patterns"

2. Claude: finds amazing implementations

3. You: "Save that JWT refresh token logic as a gist!"

4. Claude: creates a perfectly organized gist with the code

5. Future You: "Remember that auth code we saved?"

6. Claude: instantly retrieves YOUR curated code

🎯 Perfect For:

• 🔧 Developers building their personal utility library

• 📚 Learners collecting examples of best practices

• 🏢 Teams sharing code patterns across projects

• 🎨 Creators saving creative coding experiments

• 🛠️ DevOps storing configuration snippets and scripts

Features

• List Gists: View all your gists or explore public gists

• Create Gists: Save code with multiple files in one gist

• Get Gist Details: Retrieve any gist with full content

• Update Gists: Evolve your code as you learn

• Delete Gists: Clean up outdated snippets

• Star/Unstar: Bookmark the best of the best

• Fork Gists: Build upon others' great ideas

🚀 Quick Start

Installing via Smithery

To install github-gists for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @insomniactools/github-gists --client claude

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or higher

• A GitHub Personal Access Token with gist scope

• Claude Desktop or Claude CLI

Setup in 3 Minutes

1. Clone the magic:

git clone https://github.com/insomniactools/gists-mcp.git
cd gists-mcp

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Build it:

npm run build

4. Get your GitHub token:

   • Go to GitHub Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens → Tokens (classic)

   • Click "Generate new token (classic)"

   • Name it something cool like "Claude's Code Memory"

   • Select the gist scope

   • Click "Generate token"

   • Copy the token (save it somewhere safe!)

⚙️ Configuration

Option 1: Claude Desktop App

Add to your Claude Desktop configuration:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gists": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/gists-mcp/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_TOKEN": "your-github-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Option 2: Claude CLI (Global Install)

claude mcp add gists -s user \
  -e GITHUB_TOKEN=your-github-token-here \
  -- node /absolute/path/to/gists-mcp/dist/index.js

🎮 Usage Examples

Once connected, just talk to Claude naturally:

• 🔍 "Show me all my gists"

• ✨ "Create a gist with that amazing debounce function we just found"

• 📖 "Get my authentication utilities gist"

• 🔄 "Update the API client gist with better error handling"

• 🗑️ "Delete that old test gist"

• ⭐ "Star this brilliant algorithm we discovered"

• 🔀 "Fork that awesome utility collection"

🛠️ Development

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Build the project
npm run build

# Development mode with hot reload
npm run dev

# Run tests
npm test

# Lint & format
npm run lint
npm run format

📚 API Functions

Core Magic

• list_gists - Browse your code collection

• get_gist - Retrieve specific snippets

• create_gist - Save new discoveries

• update_gist - Improve existing code

• delete_gist - Clean up your library

Extra Powers

• list_public_gists - Explore the community

• list_starred_gists - Your favorites collection

• star_gist - Bookmark the best

• unstar_gist - Update your bookmarks

• fork_gist - Build on others' work

🐛 Troubleshooting

Connection Issues?

1. Double-check your GitHub token has gist scope

2. Ensure the path to index.js is absolute

3. Verify Node.js 18+ is installed

Permission Denied?

• Token might be expired - generate a new one

• Ensure you own the gists you're trying to modify

🤝 Contributing

Have ideas to make this even better? PRs are welcome! Let's build the ultimate AI code memory together!

📜 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

🙏 Acknowledgments

Built with ❤️ for the Anthropic Model Context Protocol (MCP) ecosystem

Ready to give your AI perfect memory for code? Clone this repo and start building your personal code library today! 🚀