Custom MCP tools start successfully and are selected, but are unavailable in Copilot automations

[normura]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Copilot Cloud Agent

Body

Summary

My custom Azure DevOps MCP server works in manual Copilot cloud sessions, but its tools appear unavailable to the agent in sessions started by an automation.

The automation's environment setup reports that the MCP server started successfully and lists all 10 configured tools. All 10 tools are also explicitly selected in the automation editor. However, the agent cannot invoke them.

Configuration

• Surface: GitHub Copilot cloud automations
• MCP server: ado, running @azure-devops/mcp as a local process
• Authentication: PAT authentication through an Agents secret
• Model selection: Auto
• Actual model: gpt-6-luna in both the manual and automation sessions
• MCP server startup log reports version 2.11.0

The same MCP configuration and credentials work in manual cloud sessions.

Steps to reproduce

1. Configure the Azure DevOps MCP server in the repository's Copilot MCP settings.

2. Verify that core_list_projects works in a manual cloud session.

3. Create an automation in the same repository.

4. Explicitly select the custom MCP tools in the automation's Tools selector.

5. Use this prompt and run the automation:

   Use the ado MCP server to invoke core_list_projects with top set to 1. If tool discovery is required and available, use it first. Report whether an actual tool call occurred and its result. Do not substitute shell commands or direct HTTP requests.

6. Observe that environment setup starts ado successfully and lists its tools, but the agent does not invoke an ADO tool.

Creating a brand-new automation produces the same behavior.

Expected behavior

The automation agent can invoke the selected custom MCP tools, as it can in a manual cloud session.

Actual behavior

The startup log states:

MCP server started successfully (version 2.11.0) with 10 tools

It lists:

ado/core_list_project_teams
ado/core_list_projects
ado/work
ado/wit_work_item
ado/wit_query
ado/wit_work_item_attachment_upload
ado/wit_work_item_attachment_link
ado/wit_work_item_write
ado/wit_work_item_link_write
ado/search_workitem

When asked to list its callable tools, the agent reports the seven GitHub MCP tools selected in the automation and several built-in tools, but none of the selected ADO tools.

It also reports that no tool-search or deferred-tool discovery mechanism is available.

No ADO tool call occurs, so this run produces no Azure DevOps authentication or connectivity error.

The callable-tool inventory is the agent's self-report. I do not have the underlying model-request diagnostics to independently verify which tool definitions were supplied.

Screenshots

Attached:

• Successful MCP startup with all 10 tools listed + agent response reporting that the ADO tools are unavailable:

• Automation editor showing all 10 ADO tools selected:

• Successful MCP startup, tool discovery and call in a manual cloud session:

Questions

Are custom MCP tools supported in Copilot automations?

If so, is there an additional permission or configuration requirement beyond repository MCP configuration and selecting the tools in the automation editor?

Is there a way to inspect the actual tools exposed to the model in an automation session?

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[tjhiggins]

Same issue trying to use the sentry mcp in an automation

[WuGing]

Same experience with sentry and azure.

[timrogers]

Thanks for reaching out! We're taking a look at this to figure out what's going on.

[fatih-onventis]

Sentry mcp fails.

[timrogers]

We've now fixed this bug which specifically affected shared automations. Thanks for reporting the issue ❤️

Can you try again and let us know if you run into problems?

[timrogers]

@normura Thanks for following up! We'll take a look at this today.

Would you be able to share the GitHub Actions run logs with me by emailing them to my GitHub username @github.com? You can get them by going to the automation run, clicking "...", then "View verbose logs", then clicking the job, and then clicking the cog symbol, then "Download log archive". Thanks!

[normura]

Sure thing, just sent them 👌

[WuGing]

I've reran mine and it's still failing also, but the error looks different than it did before. Private sessions seem to be working (may need to fix my Sentry authentication though), but still failing hard in the Shared Automation.

[timrogers]

@WuGing Could you send me your logs too please? It would be great to have a private example and a public example. Thank you!

[WuGing]

Yeah, I'll get that over to you in a bit.