Trends MCP for GitHub Copilot

Trends MCP is the trend data layer. GitHub Copilot Chat is a VS Code caller that can attach many MCP servers at once. Trends MCP joins that list through the same .vscode/mcp.json (or user MCP settings) that VS Code already uses: type http, url https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp, Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY. Copilot then sees get_trends, get_growth, and get_top_trends beside whatever GitHub MCP tools are already enabled for issues and repositories. Free usage is 100 requests per month. Starter is $19 per month. Copilot Chat is the right client when the person asking the trend question is already in a GitHub-centric review loop and does not want to switch to Cursor or a browser research tab.

Registering the server where Copilot Chat can see it

Copilot Chat does not have a separate Trends MCP toggle. It inherits VS Code MCP servers. Command Palette → MCP: Add Server is the shortest path. The JSON Copilot needs is the VS Code dialect, not Cursor’s transport field.

"trends-mcp": {
  "type": "http",
  "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
  "headers": {
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"
  }
}

Reload the window after saving. If Chat still cannot see tools, confirm the MCP server is enabled in the VS Code MCP view and that Copilot Chat is the chat participant, not a random sidebar extension. Workspace trust and restricted mode can also hide MCP.

Claude.ai OAuth at https://www.trendsmcp.ai/mcp is irrelevant here. Copilot is a Bearer client. Setup details live in the VS Code page and the Connect docs. This page exists because people search for Copilot, not for mcp.json.

Copilot Chat versus GitHub MCP versus Trends MCP

GitHub’s official MCP server talks to GitHub: files, issues, PRs, Actions. Trends MCP talks to demand: search volume, social feeds, npm weekly downloads, commerce queries. A healthy Copilot session uses both. “Open the issue that asked for a queue library, then using TrendsMCP compare npm growth for the two candidates” is one chat with two servers. Replacing GitHub MCP with Trends MCP would lose the repo. Replacing Trends MCP with a web search would lose the structured percent fields.

Cursor Agent can do similar pairing if GitHub tools are installed there. Copilot Chat is the better fit for organizations that already pay for Copilot, already live in pull request review, and already distrust a second IDE. The shared server stays Trends MCP. The chat product is Copilot.

Copilot Edits may also be able to call MCP tools depending on the VS Code build. Treat Chat as the supported research surface. Do not assume an inline ghost-text completion can hit Trends MCP. Completions are not tool loops.

A review-loop workflow that stays in Chat

A typical pull request question is “why this dependency.” The reviewer pastes the package name into Copilot Chat and asks, using TrendsMCP, for get_growth on npm and google search with percent_growth ["6M", "1Y"]. If the percents look extreme, a second call to get_trends (REST name get_time_series) fetches the weekly series so the review comment can cite slope rather than a single ratio. If the author is chasing a vague “hot library,” start with get_top_trends type GitHub Trending Repos or Reddit Hot Posts, then grow-check exact names. Invented names waste 404 not_found requests.

Say “using TrendsMCP” every time. Copilot is trained to answer ecosystem questions from memory. Memory is a cutoff. The MCP tools are current. Feed labels must match the data sources list exactly.

Keep Chat from turning into a dashboard. For a weekly team digest, a Zapier or n8n REST POST is cheaper and repeatable. Copilot should spend the monthly budget on the PR in front of the reviewer.

Seat, trust, and secret handling

Copilot seats are not Trends MCP seats. A Copilot Business user still needs a Trends MCP key. Store that key in user MCP settings or a local untracked header, not in a public .vscode/mcp.json. Enterprise allowlists may block unknown MCP URLs; api.trendsmcp.ai has to be permitted the same way any other remote MCP is permitted.

Workspace trust: an untrusted folder may disable MCP. Opening a random zip of a competitor’s repo should not fire trend calls with a production key. Use a throwaway key for untrusted work.

Limits Copilot users hit

Free is 100 Trends MCP requests per month. Starter is $19 for 1,000. Copilot Chat does not show a Trends MCP quota bar. The 429 arrives as a tool error. Several windows in percent_growth share one request; several sources do not. get_top_trends counts per feed page.

Copilot may retry a failed tool. A wrong source string can therefore cost two or three requests. Pin source names in a saved prompt snippet. History is about five years weekly. Asking Copilot for real-time tick data will fail or hallucinate around the tool result.

Copilot on github.com in the browser is a different surface from Copilot Chat inside VS Code. Browser Copilot does not read .vscode/mcp.json. Teams that review pull requests only on the website still need VS Code, or another MCP host, for Trends MCP tool calls. Inline ghost text also does not call Trends MCP; if a completion “knows” that a library is popular, that guess came from training weights.

Copilot Chat is the GitHub-native interactive client for the shared Trends MCP server. It is not GitHub’s MCP server, and it is not a scheduler.