Azure DevOps (ADO)

⭐ Azure DevOps MCP Server

[!WARNING] We recently completed a full tool consolidation that includes renaming of existing tools. Please see the Toolset documentation for the complete list of new tool names. If this is a breaking change for your agents or skills, you can temporarily pin the version to @azure-devops/mcp@2.8.1

This project provides Azure DevOps MCP tooling for AI agents, with a remote-first onboarding experience and a local server option when you need it.

📄 Table of Contents

[!IMPORTANT] We recommend using the Remote MCP Server instead of this local server. It requires no installation and gets new features first. Learn more

1. 📺 Overview
2. 🏆 Expectations
3. 🚀 Remote MCP Server (Recommended)
4. ⚙️ Supported Tools
5. 🔌 Local MCP Server Installation (Optional)
6. 🌏 Using Domains (local)
7. 🐥 Project and Team Defaults (local)
8. 📝 Troubleshooting
9. 🎩 Examples & Best Practices
10. 🙋‍♀️ Frequently Asked Questions
11. 📌 Contributing

📺 Overview

The Azure DevOps MCP Server brings Azure DevOps context to your agents. Try prompts like:

• "List my ADO projects"
• "List ADO Builds for 'Contoso'"
• "List ADO Repos for 'Contoso'"
• "List test plans for 'Contoso'"
• "List teams for project 'Contoso'"
• "List iterations for project 'Contoso'"
• "List my work items for project 'Contoso'"
• "List work items in current iteration for 'Contoso' project and 'Contoso Team'"
• "List all wikis in the 'Contoso' project"
• "Create a wiki page '/Architecture/Overview' with content about system design"
• "Update the wiki page '/Getting Started' with new onboarding instructions"
• "Get the content of the wiki page '/API/Authentication' from the Documentation wiki"

🏆 Expectations

The Azure DevOps MCP Server is built around tools that are concise, simple, focused, and easy to use, with each one designed for a specific scenario. We intentionally avoid creating complex tools that try to do too much. The goal is to provide a thin abstraction layer over the REST APIs that makes data access straightforward while allowing the language model to handle the more complex reasoning.

🚀 Remote MCP Server (Recommended)

For complete instructions, see the Remote MCP Server onboarding documentation.

Over time, the Remote MCP Server will replace this local MCP Server. We will continue to support the local server for now, but future investments will primarily focus on the remote experience.

We encourage all users of the local MCP Server to begin migrating to the Remote MCP Server.

If you encounter issues with tools, need support, or have a feature request, you can report an issue using the Remote MCP Server issue template. During the preview period, we will track Remote MCP Server issues through this repository.

Quick start with .vscode/mcp.json

Use this configuration to connect directly to the Azure DevOps-hosted endpoint using streamable HTTP transport:

{
  "servers": {
    "ado-remote-mcp": {
      "url": "https://mcp.dev.azure.com/{organization}",
      "type": "http"
    }
  },
  "inputs": []
}

See documentation for additional configuration options.

After saving .vscode/mcp.json, start the server from the MCP view in VS Code, then run a prompt like List ADO projects.

⚙️ Supported Tools

See the Available Tools documentation for the complete list of available remote tools.

For a comprehensive list of local tools, see TOOLSET.md.

🔌 Local MCP Server Installation (Optional)

[!IMPORTANT] Start with the Remote MCP Server first. Use the local MCP Server only if your scenario specifically requires a local stdio setup.

Use this section if you specifically need the local stdio server experience. For most users, start with the Remote MCP Server section above.

For the best experience, use Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot. See the getting started documentation to use our MCP Server with other tools such as Visual Studio 2022, Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Opencode, and Kilocode.

Prerequisites

1. Install VS Code or VS Code Insiders
2. Install Node.js 20+
3. Open VS Code in an empty folder

Installation

🧨 Install from Public Feed

This installation method is the easiest for all users of Visual Studio Code.

🎥 Watch this quick start video to get up and running in under two minutes!

Steps

In your project, add a .vscode\mcp.json file with the following content:

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "id": "ado_org",
      "type": "promptString",
      "description": "Azure DevOps organization name  (e.g. 'contoso')"
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "ado": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@azure-devops/mcp", "${input:ado_org}"]
    }
  }
}

🔥 To stay up to date with the latest features, you can use our nightly builds. Simply update your mcp.json configuration to use @azure-devops/mcp@next. Here is an updated example:

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "id": "ado_org",
      "type": "promptString",
      "description": "Azure DevOps organization name  (e.g. 'contoso')"
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "ado": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@azure-devops/mcp@next", "${input:ado_org}"]
    }
  }
}

Save the file, then click 'Start'.

!start mcp server

In chat, switch to Agent Mode.

Click "Select Tools" and choose the available tools.

!configure mcp server tools

Open GitHub Copilot Chat and try a prompt like List ADO projects. The first time an ADO tool is executed browser will open prompting to login with your Microsoft account. Please ensure you are using credentials matching selected Azure DevOps organization.

💥 We strongly recommend creating a .github\copilot-instructions.md in your project. This will enhance your experience using the Azure DevOps MCP Server with GitHub Copilot Chat. To start, just include "This project uses Azure DevOps. Always check to see if the Azure DevOps MCP server has a tool relevant to the user's request" in your copilot instructions file.

See the getting started documentation to use our MCP Server with other tools such as Visual Studio 2022, Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor.

🌏 Using Domains (local)

Azure DevOps exposes a large surface area. As a result, our Azure DevOps MCP Server includes many tools. To keep the toolset manageable, avoid confusing the model, and respect client limits on loaded tools, use Domains to load only the areas you need. Domains are named groups of related tools (for example: core, work, work-items, repositories, wiki). Add the -d argument and the domain names to the server args in your mcp.json to list the domains to enable.

For example, use "-d", "core", "work", "work-items" to load only Work Item related tools (see the example below).

{
  "inputs": [
    {
      "id": "ado_org",
      "type": "promptString",
      "description": "Azure DevOps organization name  (e.g. 'contoso')"
    }
  ],
  "servers": {
    "ado_with_filtered_domains": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@azure-devops/mcp", "${input:ado_org}", "-d", "core", "work", "work-items"]
    }
  }
}

Domains that are available are: core, work, work-items, search, test-plans, repositories, wiki, pipelines, advanced-security

We recommend that you always enable core tools so that you can fetch project level information.

By default all domains are loaded

🐥 Project and Team Defaults (local)

You can also configure default Azure DevOps project and team values from .vscode/mcp.json using project and team, so tools can skip selection prompts.

Example .vscode/mcp.json

{
  "servers": {
    "ado": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@azure-devops/mcp", "myorg", "--authentication", "azcli"],
      "env": {
        "ado_mcp_project": "Contoso",
        "ado_mcp_team": "Fabrikam Team"
      }
    }
  }
}

📝 Troubleshooting

See the Troubleshooting guide for help with common issues and logging.

🎩 Examples & Best Practices

Explore example prompts in our Examples documentation.

For best practices and tips to enhance your experience with the MCP Server, refer to the How-To guide.

🙋‍♀️ Frequently Asked Questions

For answers to common questions about the Azure DevOps MCP Server, see the Frequently Asked Questions.

📌 Contributing

We welcome contributions! During preview, please file issues for bugs, enhancements, or documentation improvements.

See our Contributions Guide for:

• 🛠️ Development setup
• ✨ Adding new tools
• 📝 Code style & testing
• 🔄 Pull request process

⚠️ Please read the Contributions Guide before creating a pull request.

🤝 Code of Conduct

This project follows the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For questions, see the FAQ or contact open@microsoft.com.

📈 Project Stats


🏆 Hall of Fame

Thanks to all contributors who make this project awesome! ❤️


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License

Licensed under the MIT License.

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