Inconsistent Display of MCP Servers and Skills

[sanchar10]

Describe the bug

The /mcp show and /skills list commands display inconsistent and incomplete results. Each command only shows a subset of loaded resources based on their source (manual vs plugin-bundled), and they have opposite behaviors:

• /mcp show shows manually configured MCP servers but NOT plugin-bundled ones
• /skills list shows plugin-bundled skills but NOT manually added ones

At startup, the CLI correctly shows all MCP servers ("Configured MCP servers: weather-server, workiq"), but /mcp show only displays weather-server.

Command	Shows manually configured?	Shows plugin-bundled?
/mcp show	Yes	No
/skills list	No	Yes

---

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Install the workiq plugin (which adds an MCP server + skill)
2. Manually configure an MCP server (e.g., weather-server) in ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json
3. Manually add a skill folder to ~/.copilot/skills/ (e.g., agent-workflow-builder_ai_toolkit)
4. Start Copilot CLI - observe startup message shows ALL MCP servers including plugin-bundled ones
5. Run /mcp show - observe it only shows weather-server (manual), not workiq (plugin)
6. Run /skills list - observe it shows workiq (plugin) but not agent-workflow-builder_ai_toolkit (manual)

Affected version

0.0.394 Commit: 3d79feb

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Install the workiq plugin (which adds an MCP server + skill)
2. Manually configure an MCP server (e.g., weather-server) in ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json
3. Add a skill folder to ~/.copilot/skills/ (e.g., agent-workflow-builder_ai_toolkit) -> not sure this was installed as default
4. Start Copilot CLI - observe startup message shows ALL MCP servers including plugin-bundled ones
5. Run /mcp show - observe it only shows weather-server (manual), not workiq (plugin)
6. Run /skills list - observe it shows workiq (plugin) but not agent-workflow-builder_ai_toolkit (manual)

Expected behavior

Both commands should show ALL loaded resources regardless of their source:

• /mcp show should list ALL MCP servers (from mcp-config.json + plugins + project)
• /skills list should list ALL skills (from ~/.copilot/skills/ + plugins + project)

Optionally, add a "Source" column to indicate origin (manual/plugin/project).

Additional context

• OS: Windows
• CLI Version: v0.0.394
• Date: 2026-01-24

File locations tested:

• Manual MCP: ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json
• Plugin MCP: ~/.copilot/installed-plugins/copilot-plugins/workiq/.mcp.json
• Manual skill: ~/.copilot/skills/agent-workflow-builder_ai_toolkit/SKILL.md
• Plugin skill: ~/.copilot/installed-plugins/copilot-plugins/workiq/skills/workiq/SKILL.md

Impact:

• Users cannot easily audit what's actually loaded
• Debugging which MCP servers or skills are active is confusing
• Inconsistent UX between the two inspection commands

[sanchar10]

This bug is only about the /mcp show command. Please ignore '/skills list' issue as that was dues to incorrectly configured skill.

[alankpax]

skills listing does not seem to work either

[danielwhilchy]

I can verify that I have the same problem with skills and mcp servers.

Using latest version to date of copilot-cli v0.0.400.

Skills

I've installed the skills using skills.sh method and it only shows one of the skills installed (find-skill from anthropic), the rest (even some created by me that worked on previous versions) do not appears.

I've checked that all the skills use the standard specification, and the skills created by me (using skill-creator) worked fine on previous versions.

MCP

Also it only shows one of the MCP servers installed. They work fine on VS Studio Code, but do not work on copilot-cli (just the one for github).

[RyanHecht]

Hey folks! We've improved the way we load/manage MCP servers and skills in more recent versions. @sanchar10, do you still encounter this in the latest version?

[examon]

This was addressed in v0.0.395: /mcp show now includes MCP servers loaded from plugins, not just manually configured ones. If you're still seeing missing servers on a current version, please comment with your Copilot CLI version and details, and we can take another look.