GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN not set

[greggh]

Describe the bug

I am getting this fatal error when starting up the MCP:

GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN not set

It is in my environment, set with an export in my .zshrc. It is in the env key in the mcpServers entry for github. It is also set in the args for the docker command. It is in every place I can put the token.

Affected version

Please run docker run -i --rm ghcr.io/github/github-mcp-server ./github-mcp-server --version and paste the output below

server version v0.1.0 (b893367) 2025-04-04T15:38:19Z

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Start the MCP, get this error.

Expected vs actual behavior

MCP sees the settings and doesnt give me the error.

Logs

[rpfelgueiras]

I had this same error. Not sure if I will help or not, but I was replacing the GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN in too many places 😅 See the screenshot below.

I hope it helps.

[lukeojones]

I've tried following the readme to use the promptString input method (and therefore leverage VSCode's secrets functionality) but that doesn't work here so I've had to add the pat key directly to the settings.json for now (which I obviously don't want to do as it's bad practice).

Anyone else managed to figure this out? Or get the prompt to show when starting the server?

[greggh]

I had this same error. Not sure if I will help or not, but I was replacing the GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN in too many places 😅 See the screenshot below.

I hope it helps.

This fixes it. thank you @rpfelgueiras

[VladyslavXXI]

@lukeojones this might help.

[lukeojones]

@lukeojones this might help.

Nice! Will give this a try. Thanks.

[jlehnGIT]

Hello, I am seeing this issue and have tried the install via the link as well as manually copying and pasting the settings.

FATA[0000] GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN not set