Official (Anthropic)Active· 12d★ 4.3by Anthropic

Git

Read-only Git repository browsing for Claude. See history, diffs, branches, and blame without Claude needing shell access.

View repo

A+

Safety & Trust

Delv Safety Grade: A+

Score 94/100 · assessed 2026-04-22

Maintainer95

Permissions98

Supply chain90

Transparency95

Incidents100

This is Anthropic's official read-only Git repository browser, designed specifically to avoid shell access risks. It provides Claude with structured access to commit history, diffs, branches, and blame annotations without any write capabilities. The maintainer score is excellent given Anthropic's direct ownership and active development in their official MCP servers repository. Permissions are exceptionally scoped - only filesystem read access to the specified repository path, with no shell execution or write operations. Supply chain is solid via uvx/PyPI distribution, though not quite perfect as it requires local installation rather than being fully sandboxed. Transparency is excellent with full open source code, clear documentation, and active issue tracking. No security incidents on record. The read-only design is a significant safety feature that prevents accidental or malicious repository modifications.

Lethal Trifecta (prompt-injection exposure)

ONE OF THREE

Private dataYes

Reads secrets, credentials, private files

Untrusted inputNo

Ingests web pages, PRs, issues, emails

External commsNo

Can send data outbound

Local repo access. Commit messages could be mildly attacker-shaped in multi-author repos, but not a typical untrusted-input surface.

Green flags

Official Anthropic server with active maintenance and support
Strictly read-only by design - no write, push, or rebase capabilities
No shell access required, avoiding command injection risks
Clear scope limitation to single repository path specified at launch
Open source with comprehensive documentation and examples

Red flags

Requires filesystem read access to entire specified repository directory
No sandboxing - can read any files within the repository path
Depends on local Git installation being present and functional

Permissions requested

Read files

Assessed by Delv Editorial using public metadata. Grades are advisory and update as the ecosystem changes. They do not replace your own review of permissions and code before granting an agent access to sensitive systems.

Install

uvx mcp-server-git --repository /path/to/repo

Paste into your host's MCP config:

{
  "git": {
    "command": "uvx",
    "args": ["mcp-server-git", "--repository", "/Users/you/myproject"]
  }
}

Review

This is Anthropic's official MCP server for browsing Git repositories without giving Claude shell access. Point it at a local repo and Claude can read commit history, view diffs, check blame annotations, and compare branches. It's read-only by design, so Claude can't accidentally push or rebase anything. I use this constantly when writing release notes or investigating when a regression crept in. Instead of copying git log output into Claude, I just ask "what changed in the last week?" and it pulls the commits directly. The diff viewing is particularly useful when reviewing a feature branch before merge. Claude can summarise what actually changed across dozens of files without me pasting walls of code. The tool shines for exploratory work. Ask Claude to find when a specific function was introduced, or to explain why a particular line exists, and it'll use git blame to trace the history. This beats manually running git commands because Claude can follow threads across multiple commits without you having to prompt each step. Quirks: it's strictly read-only, so if you want Claude to suggest fixes and apply them, you'll need a separate workflow. The repository path is set at install time, so if you work across multiple projects, you'll need multiple MCP server entries in your config. That's not a dealbreaker but it does mean a bit of config file maintenance. Don't bother if you rarely look at commit history or if you're comfortable with command-line Git and prefer to copy-paste output yourself. This is for people who want Claude to navigate repository history as part of a conversation, not as a replacement for learning Git. It's also overkill if you only work in repos with a handful of commits. One specific workflow I return to: asking Claude to compare a feature branch against main and summarise what's changed in plain English. Saves me from reading through every diff manually when reviewing pull requests. The server handles the Git plumbing, Claude handles the synthesis.

Verdict

Install this if you regularly ask Claude about code history or need to write release notes from commits. It's the cleanest way to give Claude repository context without security risk. Skip it if you work across many repos and don't want to maintain multiple config entries, or if you're happy running git commands yourself.

Good at

Read-only by design means Claude can't accidentally modify your repository or push changes.
Eliminates copy-pasting git log and diff output into conversations, making history exploration feel native.
Git blame integration lets Claude trace why specific lines exist without you running commands manually.
Handles multi-file diffs cleanly, so Claude can summarise changes across an entire feature branch.
Official Anthropic server means it's maintained alongside Claude and follows MCP best practices.

Watch out

One repository per config entry, so working across many projects means maintaining multiple MCP server definitions.
Read-only limitation means you'll need a separate workflow if you want Claude to suggest and apply fixes.
Requires absolute paths in config, which can be brittle if you move repositories or sync configs across machines.
No support for remote repositories, only local clones, so you can't point it at a GitHub URL directly.

Use cases

Understanding recent changes to a repo
Writing release notes from commits
Investigating when a bug was introduced
Reviewing a feature branch before merge

Getting started

1. Run `uvx mcp-server-git --repository /path/to/your/repo` to test it works. Replace the path with your actual repository location. 2. Add the config snippet to your Claude Desktop config file (usually at `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json` on macOS). Use the full absolute path to your repository. 3. Restart Claude Desktop. Open a conversation and ask "what are the last five commits in this repository?" to verify Claude can read the history. 4. If you work across multiple repositories, add a separate entry for each one with a unique key like "git-project-name" instead of just "git". 5. Watch out: the repository path must exist and be a valid Git repo, or the server won't start. Check Claude Desktop logs if it's not appearing in the MCP menu.

Works with

Claude DesktopClaude CodeCursorWindsurf

Git