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Respect VS Code User Settings for Copilot CLI Configuration (e.g., mcp.json) #146
Description
Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve
No response
Proposed solution
To improve user experience and consistency, the Copilot CLI should respect existing VS Code user settings for configuration, mirroring the setup used within the editor.
💡 Proposal
The Copilot CLI should look for and utilize configuration files stored in the standard VS Code user settings locations, such as the example below for macOS:
Example Configuration Location (macOS VS Code Insiders):
$HOME/Library/Application Support/Code - Insiders/User/mcp.json
(Note: The path varies based on the OS and VS Code version, e.g., stable, Insiders.)
⚙️ Sample Configuration Format
The CLI should be able to read and utilize a configuration file formatted like this (using mcp.json as an example):
{
"servers": {
"sequential-thinking": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-sequential-thinking@latest"],
"type": "stdio"
},
"context7": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://mcp.context7.com/mcp",
"headers": {
"CONTEXT7_API_KEY": "${input:CONTEXT7_API_KEY}"
}
},
"fetch": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"mcp-server-fetch",
"--user-agent=\"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/18.6 Safari/605.1.15\"",
"--ignore-robots-txt"
],
"type": "stdio"
},
"playwright": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"@playwright/mcp@latest",
"--no-sandbox",
"--isolated",
"--image-responses",
"omit",
"--block-service-workers",
"--ignore-https-errors",
"--save-session",
"--save-trace"
],
"type": "stdio"
},
"chrome-devtools": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "chrome-devtools-mcp@latest"],
"type": "stdio"
}
},
"inputs": [
{
"id": "CONTEXT7_API_KEY",
"type": "promptString",
"description": "Your Context7 API key"
}
]
}➕ Benefits
- Consistency: Users maintain a single source of truth for their Copilot configuration across VS Code and the CLI.
- Ease of Setup: Reduces redundant configuration steps.
- Standardization: Aligns the CLI's behavior with the common configuration practices of the VS Code ecosystem.
This integration would significantly enhance the workflow for developers heavily using both VS Code and the Copilot CLI.
Example prompts or workflows
No response
Additional context
No response
Activity
github-actions commentedon Sep 30, 2025
Thank you for your issue! We have categorized it as an enhancement, and it has been added to our backlog. In doing so, we are not committing to implementing this feature at this time, but, we will consider it for future releases based on community feedback and our own product roadmap.
If you come across this issue and would like to see it implemented, please add a thumbs up! This will help us prioritize the feature. Please only comment if you have additional information or viewpoints to contribute.
RyanHecht commentedon Oct 1, 2025
Thanks for the suggestion! I agree that there's work we need to do to unify the various Copilot clients. We've added this to our internal board to track!
peterbecich commentedon Nov 15, 2025
I believe this issue has another benefit: allowing project-local, version-controlled
copilot-cliconfiguration: #31AlexW00 commentedon Feb 19, 2026
i am so surprised that github copilot cli and vs code version DONT actually use the same mcp.json format - this is super annoying and the main reason im not using the cli / bg agent
SamuelMiller commentedon Apr 10, 2026
We are in April 2026, it would be great if this was implemented. Claude Code CLI and Claude Code chat within VS Code are able to share the same settings, which makes it very easy to go back and forth.
alexwaibel commentedon May 27, 2026
Huge +1 here, it would be very useful to be able to define things like allowed tool calls once in ~/.copilot/permission-config.json for example and allow both GH Copilot CLI and Copilot in VS Code to read and respect these settings.