Introducing MCP Apps Support in Insiders Mode

[mattdholloway]

Hello from the GitHub MCP Server Maintainers 👋,

We're excited to announce MCP Apps support in the GitHub MCP Server, available now through Insiders Mode! This brings rich, interactive UIs directly into your AI chat experience. This allows for usage such as editing tool calls prior to submission.

Warning

This functionality is currently only supported in Visual Studio Code - Insiders

What are MCP Apps?

MCP Apps is an extension to the Model Context Protocol that enables servers to deliver interactive HTML interfaces directly within the conversation. Instead of returning plain text that the LLM must interpret and relay, tools can now render forms, profiles, and dashboards right in the chat - inside a secure, sandboxed iframe.

This means you can interact with GitHub visually: fill out forms with live validation, see user profiles with avatars, and use a Markdown editor.

What's included

We've shipped MCP Apps UIs for three tools to start:

Tool	What it does
get_me	Displays your GitHub user profile with avatar, bio, and stats in a rich card
issue_write	Opens an interactive form to create or update issues, complete with a Markdown editor
create_pull_request	Provides a full PR creation form with title, body, base/head branch selection, and draft toggle

How to try it

MCP Apps is gated behind Insiders Mode. Enable it using any of these methods:

Deployment	Method
Remote server	Append /insiders to the URL or set X-MCP-Insiders: true header
Local/OSS server	--insiders CLI flag or GITHUB_INSIDERS=true environment variable

Further details can be found in the docs.

Client requirements

MCP Apps requires a host that supports the MCP Apps extension. Currently tested and working with:

• VS Code Insiders - enable via chat.mcp.apps.enabled setting

Security

MCP Apps are designed with security as a first-class concern:

• Sandboxed iframes - UI apps have no direct DOM access to the host
• CSP enforcement - the server declares required external domains (e.g., avatars.githubusercontent.com), and the host enforces Content Security Policy
• No context leakage - interactive form data stays between the iframe and the MCP server, not injected into the LLM context window

What's next

This is just the beginning. We're actively working on:

• Richer tool UIs - dynamic branch pickers, repository search, label/assignee/milestone selectors for issue and PR creation (#1974)
• More tools with MCP Apps support - expanding beyond the initial three tools
• Remote MCP compatibility - ensuring full Insiders + resources support works correctly through the remote server

Why this matters

• Better UX: Complex multi-step workflows (creating issues, PRs) become point-and-click instead of back-and-forth prompting
• Familiar design: Primer-based UIs feel like native GitHub experiences
• Safe experimentation: Everything is behind Insiders Mode - GA users are never affected

ℹ️ Features in Insiders Mode may change, evolve, or be removed based on feedback.

We want your feedback! 💬

Your experience shapes what gets promoted to GA. Please share your thoughts:

• Which tools would benefit most from interactive UIs?
• How does the MCP Apps experience compare to text-only tool responses?
• What workflows feel clunky today that a form or visual interface could improve?

Drop your feedback in the GitHub MCP Server Discussions - we're listening!