Set up banish for GitHub Copilot

banish runs as an MCP server. Register it in GitHub Copilot and every command it runs through banish comes back compacted, so Copilot spends far fewer tokens on verbose shell and tool output. Copilot has two surfaces with different config formats - use the one you run.

Prerequisites

• banish installed. See install and confirm with banish version.
• GitHub Copilot CLI, or VS Code 1.99+ with Copilot agent mode enabled.

Copilot CLI

Add banish with the CLI:

copilot mcp add banish -- banish serve

Or add it by hand to ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "banish": { "type": "local", "command": "banish", "args": ["serve"] }
  }
}

VS Code agent mode

VS Code uses the key servers, not mcpServers. Add banish to .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace (or your user MCP config via "MCP: Open User Configuration"):

{
  "servers": {
    "banish": { "type": "stdio", "command": "banish", "args": ["serve"] }
  }
}

MCP tools are only available in agent mode, not Ask or Edit mode. If Copilot cannot find banish on your PATH, use the absolute path from which banish as the command.

Verify

In the Copilot CLI, confirm banish appears in your configured MCP servers. In VS Code agent mode, open the tools list and look for the banish tools - with the defaults you get 45-plus, such as banish_gs, banish_dps, and banish_kpods.

What you get

Copilot now reads compacted output through banish. See MCP server for how verbs become tools, the benchmarks for measured savings, and set up an agent for the general flow.

Other agents: Gemini CLI, OpenAI Codex, Windsurf, Cline.