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Connect an MCP app

GitCafe runs an MCP server at https://git.cafe/mcp, so AI tools such as Claude and ChatGPT can read repositories and, with your approval, work on issues and pull requests. Each connection is limited to the repositories and permissions you approve.

Read public repositories without signing in

Add https://git.cafe/mcp to your MCP client as a remote server. Without connecting an account, its read tools work on public repositories: code, branches and tags, issues, pull requests, reviews and CI results.

A write tool, or get_me, asks the client to sign in, which starts the connection steps below. Connect first if you want the tools to read private repositories.

Connect a client

You need a verified GitCafe account.

  1. In your MCP client, add https://git.cafe/mcp as a remote MCP server.
  2. Follow the sign-in link the client opens.
  3. Check the app name on the consent screen; Details shows its client ID and return address. GitCafe does not verify app names, so only continue if you started this.
  4. Review the permissions. They are granted as the app requested; if they are more than you want to give, cancel.
  5. Choose the repository access: All repositories you can access (the default, including repositories you get access to later) or Only select repositories…, which lists your repositories to pick from. A selection does not grow: a repository you add later needs a new connection. Some permission sets limit how many you can select, and the screen says how many.
  6. Choose Authorize and confirm it's you if asked. You return to the client.

Choose Cancel to refuse. Never paste a token or password into a connector's settings: the browser flow handles sign-in.

Claude

Open Customize → Connectors → Add → Add custom connector. Enter a name and https://git.cafe/mcp, keep the detected sign-in and automatic registration options, then choose Add → Connect and approve the connection. Leave the tools on Needs approval to review each call.

ChatGPT

With developer mode enabled, open Plugins → Create app → Create MCP App. Enter a name and https://git.cafe/mcp, keep OAuth, acknowledge the custom-server warning and choose Create. Approve the connection, then open the app and choose Try in chat.

Menus vary by client version and plan.

What a connected app can do

With the permissions you approved, an app can:

  • read your identity and its approved repositories (get_me);
  • read code, branches, tags and search results;
  • read and write issues, pull requests, comments and reviews;
  • resolve review threads;
  • merge pull requests, if you approved pr:merge:write;
  • read CI runs, checks, jobs and shared logs (ci_read).

An app cannot create branches or commits, push, start or cancel CI, or administer or delete repositories. Repository rules apply to everything it does.

A merge request returns accepted before the merge finishes. Have the app check the merge status until it reports completed before it assumes the pull request merged.

Review or revoke access

Open Settings → Authorized Apps to see each connection: the app, the audiences it covers (API, MCP, Git), its repositories by name or All repositories you can access, its permissions, when you connected it and when it last issued a token (Last token issued). Choose Revoke and confirm to end a connection, with all its tokens, immediately. Tokens issued to apps are listed there, not under Tokens, which lists only your personal access tokens.

You have one connection per app. Connecting the same app again, for example from another device or for another audience, updates it in place: your other devices and audiences keep working, and the consent screen shows what changes when you choose different repositories. A connection lasts until you revoke it, and ends after 90 days without a new token; each time the app refreshes its token, the 90 days start again.

An organization's owners and admins can see which apps their members connected (Organization settings → Connections) and remove one person's connection from that organization's repositories. The app then stops reaching that organization's repositories at once, through every audience; your connection keeps working elsewhere, and reconnecting does not undo the removal. Authorized Apps shows Removed from the organization until an admin restores it.

Connections made before October 2026 lasted 30 days from approval. They keep that end; approving the app again moves the connection to the 90-day rule.

Connect an API client

OAuth clients can also call the REST API. Use https://git.cafe/api as the OAuth resource; a token issued for the API does not work for MCP, and the reverse is also true. Consent screens and Authorized Apps show the audiences as API and MCP chips.

  • Use the authorization-code flow with PKCE (S256), and send the resource (RFC 8707) in the authorization, token and refresh requests.
  • One connection covers every resource it was approved for. The token and refresh requests each name one resource and get a token for that resource only; naming a resource the connection does not cover returns invalid_target. A client that connected for MCP and then for the API holds one connection covering both.
  • Access tokens last up to 15 minutes. Each refresh rotates the refresh token. The connection ends after 90 days without a token request, or when revoked. Each device's refresh tokens form their own family: reusing an old refresh token, or revoking one, ends that device's tokens only.
  • API OAuth covers repository operations on the selected repositories. It does not grant organization, team or profile access, or Git credentials.
  • To revoke a token, send it with the connection's client_id to the revocation endpoint.

For the other ways to authenticate, see choose how to authenticate.

Connect a GitCafe app as yourself

Some apps, such as coding agents in the apps pilot, are registered GitCafe apps that can act as you, including cloning and pushing over Git. They work only in organizations that installed the app, and only on repositories that installation selected.

  • You have one connection to the app across organizations. The consent screen lists each organization you belong to that installed it (up to 25), and you choose, for each one you connect it in, All repositories you can access in that organization (the installation's repositories that you can reach) or Only select repositories…, which lists those of its repositories you can read. Nothing is chosen for you. Organizations you leave unchosen are not connected, and ones already connected keep their access.
  • One consent covers every audience the installations approved for their members (for example API, MCP and Git), so you see one row in Authorized apps. The app asks for a token for one audience in one organization at a time: the token request may name an installation_id, and otherwise uses the organization you approved most recently; the token response says which. The app can request only the permissions that installation allows apps to use for its members. The app's own bot permissions never apply to you.
  • The app acts with your own current access: if you lose a role on a repository, the app loses it too. It never gets more than you have. The consent screen and Authorized apps name only the repositories you can still read and the installation still selects; one you lost, or one moved out of the organization, is left out.
  • Your actions through the app are recorded as yours, via the app's installation: your comments, reviews and pull requests show as, for example, Alice via Hoplite.
  • The consent screen names the app and its publisher, and says whether it can clone, or clone and push, with Git.
  • Authorized apps lists the connection under the app's name with its audience chips and publisher, and each organization it acts in with its repositories and permissions there. Disconnect an organization to stop the app acting as you there only, or Revoke all to end the connection.
  • For Git, the app requests a token for the https://git.cafe/git resource. That token works only for Git, sent as the password of HTTPS Git credentials or as a bearer token; API and MCP tokens do not work for Git, and a Git token does not work for the API or MCP. Cloning needs repo:contents:read, pushing needs repo:contents:write, your own write access and the repository's rules. Git LFS and SSH do not accept these tokens.
  • Access stops at once when an organization admin pauses or uninstalls the app, removes a repository from its installation or removes your connection from the organization, and when you disconnect that organization or revoke the connection. A paused installation cannot renew tokens until it resumes.

Ordinary OAuth clients, including ones registered dynamically, cannot use the Git resource.

Connect an agent using auth.md

An agent without a registered OAuth client can connect through the flow described at https://git.cafe/auth.md. It grants REST API access for up to one hour; it does not grant MCP or Git access.

  1. Give the agent your GitCafe account's email address. The agent registers and shows you a verification link and a six-digit code.
  2. Open the link, sign in, and enter the code. Only continue if you asked the agent to connect.
  3. Choose the repositories and permissions, then choose Authorize. The agent's request names every permission, so here you choose which to grant; write and admin permissions start off.

The code expires after ten minutes and locks after five wrong attempts. Access tokens last 15 minutes and the agent can renew them until the connection ends after one hour. For longer access, use API OAuth, MCP or the CLI instead.

To stop the agent, revoke Agent registration (auth.md) in Settings → Authorized Apps.

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