v10

Lab 3 — IDE Integration + GitHub MCP

Summary — what this page covers The hands-on MCP lab. Attendees wire Claude Code into their IDE, then connect and drive the GitHub MCP server against the BookTracker repo — querying issues/PRs and creating an issue through Claude. Note the network dependency up front and give an offline fallback.

Duration: 65 min · Deliverable: a GitHub MCP session that queried the repo and created an issue

Do this first: creating the GitHub Personal Access Token in Part B is the slow step and needs the internet. If the network looks shaky, start the token now and use the offline fallback for the rest.

Part A — IDE integration (≈20 min)

  • Install the Claude Code integration for your IDE — VS Code (code --install-extension anthropic.claude-code) or JetBrains/Rider (Marketplace → "Claude Code" → restart).

  • Make an edit through Claude and review it as an inline diff (VS Code) or in the merge tool (JetBrains); approve/reject.

  • Confirm your .claude/ config from Labs 1–2 (CLAUDE.md, rules, skill, hook) still applies in the IDE — same agent, same config, different diff/permission UI. (Open a file under BookTracker.Api/Endpoints/ and check /memory shows the path-scoped rule.)

  • Resume your terminal session inside the IDE: open the IDE's integrated terminal and run

    claude --continue

    You should land back in the same conversation, with the history from your terminal session intact — proof the session, not just the config, follows you across surfaces.

Part B — Configure the GitHub MCP server (≈20 min)

1. Create a GitHub Personal Access Token (the slow step). GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens. A classic token with the repo scope is simplest; for a fine-grained token, grant Issues: read/write, Pull requests: read, and Contents: read on the BookTracker repo. Copy the token — you won't see it again.

2. Register the server with Claude Code. The remote GitHub MCP server needs no Docker — register it over HTTP with your token:

claude mcp add --transport http github https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/ \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer ghp_YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"

3. Verify the connection:

claude mcp list      # should show: github - connected

If it shows connected, Claude can now call GitHub's tools. If not, re-check the token scopes and that you pasted it whole.

Part C — Drive it (≈25 min)

Run these in sequence, checking each result against the real repo:

List the open issues in this repo, sorted by creation date. Which look like good first
contributions, and why?
Find the issues related to the Books API. For the top one, read the relevant source and
propose a concrete fix — don't implement it yet.
Create an issue titled "Add GET /books/{id}/reviews endpoint". Include acceptance criteria,
the affected files, and a complexity estimate.

Watch the last one go through the permission prompt before it writes to GitHub — creating an issue is a real, outward action, so Claude asks first.

Checkpoint

  • IDE shows Claude's edits as reviewable diffs
  • claude mcp list shows github connected
  • Claude listed real issues from the repo
  • Claude created an issue in GitHub

Offline fallback

If the network or GitHub is down, you can still practice the query → action pattern locally:

  • Query: instead of the GitHub tools, have Claude read the repo's own history — git log --oneline -20 and the existing files — and answer "what looks like a good first contribution?" from that.

  • Action: instead of creating a remote issue, have Claude write the issue to a local file (e.g. proposed-issues/reviews-endpoint.md) with the same acceptance criteria, affected files, and complexity estimate. Same structured output, no network.

  • Refer to the instructor's recorded GitHub MCP demo for the live version.