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Also for copilot-cli:

• tools property is required (likely "tools": ["*"])
• input is not allowed (you can use env vars)
• "type": "stdio" becomes "type": "local"

Reference: https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agents/cloud-agent/extend-cloud-agent-with-mcp#writing-a-json-configuration-for-mcp-servers

GitHub team this would be nice. If GitHub Copilot is 1 product then using it from VS Code or the CLI or the CLI in VS Code's terminal or wherever should be able to share the same MCP server configuration.

A practical workaround until the configuration formats are unified would be to keep one canonical MCP configuration and generate the CLI and VS Code configurations from it.

I would avoid copying the same JSON file between both locations because the differences appear to go beyond the top-level property name. The discussion already identifies differences such as mcpServers versus servers, and stdio versus local for the CLI format.

A maintainable approach would be:

1. Store the server definitions in one canonical JSON or YAML file.
2. Add a small conversion script that emits the format expected by each client.
3. Validate both generated files before replacing the existing configurations.
4. Add a small test fixture covering environment variables, command arguments, server types, and tool allowlists so schema changes are caught early.

The conversion should be based on each client's documented schema rather than assuming every field maps one-to-one. In particular, fields unsupported by one client should produce a clear validation warning rather than being silently dropped.

This would give users a single source of truth today while preserving compatibility with each client's current configuration format. A shared, officially supported schema would still be the better long-term solution.

They've actually fixed this now. ~\.copilot\mcp-config.json is respected by GitHub Copilot CLI, GitHub Copilot in VS Code, and GitHub Copilot App. And .mcp.json file in the root of the repo is now respected by all 3 as well.

In VS Code, setting chat.mcp.workspaceRootConfig.enabled

See https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agent-customization/mcp-servers?referrer=in-product#_configure-the-mcpjson-file for more details.

I know put all my MCPs in . ~\.copilot\mcp-config.json that i want to use from any GitHub Copilot surface area and then any MCPs that are just for a given repo I put in .mcp.json in the root and it's pretty smooth how they merge them together with the new agent harness.

yes, would be nice.