GitHub Brain MCP Server

GitHub Brain is an experimental MCP server for summarizing GitHub discussions, issues, and pull requests. Answer questions like:

- _What are the contributions of user X in the last month?_
- _Summarize this month's discussions._

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/80910025-9d58-4367-af00-bf4c51e6ce86

GitHub Brain complements (but does not replace) the official GitHub MCP server. It stores GitHub data in a local database for:

- Fast responses
- More than the standard 100-item API limit
- Token-efficient Markdown output


GitHub Brain is programmed in Markdown.

Installation

``sh
npm i -g github-brain
`

Rerun to update. sudo may be required on some systems.

Alternatively use npx to run without installing globally and needing sudo.

`sh
npx github-brain@latest
`

Usage

`sh
github-brain
`

Or with npx:

`sh
npx github-brain@latest
`

Launches the interactive TUI where you can:

1. Setup - Configure authentication and settings
- Login with GitHub (OAuth) - Recommended for most users
- Login with Personal Access Token - For fine-grained tokens or when OAuth is unavailable
- Open configuration file - Edit .env directly
2. Pull - Populate the local database with GitHub data

Re-run pull anytime to update the database with new GitHub data.

The app loads environment variables from a .env file in the GitHub Brain's home directory - ~/.github-brain by default.

| Argument | Description |
| :------- | :----------------------------------------- |
| -m | Home directory. Default: ~/.github-brain |

MCP Server

Start the MCP server using the local database:

`sh
github-brain mcp
`

Or with npx:

`sh
npx github-brain@latest mcp
`

| Argument | Variable | Description |
| :------- | :------------- | :----------------------------------------- |
| -o | ORGANIZATION | GitHub organization. Required. |
| -m | | Home directory. Default: ~/.github-brain |

MCP Configuration

$3

Add to the Claude MCP configuration file:

`json
{
"mcpServers": {
"github-brain": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "github-brain",
"args": ["mcp"]
}
}
`

Or with npx:

`json
{
"mcpServers": {
"github-brain": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "npx",
"args": ["github-brain@latest", "mcp"]
}
}
`

Merge with existing mcpServers if present.

$3

Add to the VS Code MCP configuration file:

`json
{
"servers": {
"github-brain": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "github-brain",
"args": ["mcp"],
"version": "0.0.1"
}
}
}
`

Or with npx:

`json
{
"servers": {
"github-brain": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "npx",
"args": ["github-brain@latest", "mcp"],
"version": "0.0.1"
}
}
}
`

Merge with existing servers if present.

Development

scripts/run builds and runs github-brain with the checkout directory as home -m (database in db/, config in .env`).