Configuration
Create .vscode/mcp.json in your workspace root (not in .vscode/settings.json):
{
"servers": {
"urchin": {
"type": "stdio",
"command": "urchin",
"args": ["mcp"]
}
}
}
.vscode/mcp.json is workspace-scoped. To enable Urchin globally across all VS Code workspaces, use the VS Code user settings MCP config instead (see VS Code MCP documentation for the exact path on your platform).
Verify
In Copilot Chat, type:
Or just ask the agent to run urchin_status. Expected output:
urchin — local memory sync substrate
running: true
events: 1042
...
| Tool | Purpose |
|---|
urchin_status | Show journal health and identity |
urchin_ingest | Record a decision, note, or context |
urchin_recent_activity | Recall recent events across all sources |
urchin_search | Keyword search over journal content |
urchin_project_context | Scope recall to a project name |
urchin_workspace_context | Load context for the current repo path |
urchin_remember | Quick-capture without a workspace |
urchin_ephemeral | Toggle burn mode — suppress writes |
urchin_agent_reflect | ReAct reflection over recent journal |
urchin_semantic_search | Semantic (cosine similarity) search |
Recommended INSTRUCTIONS file addition
Add to .github/copilot-instructions.md in your repo:
At the start of each session, call urchin_workspace_context with the repository root path
to load recent memory. Record decisions with urchin_ingest using kind: decision.
Requirements
urchin on PATH. Install: cargo install --path crates/urchin-cli- VS Code with the GitHub Copilot extension
- MCP support in Copilot Chat (available in recent versions)
Notes
urchin serve is not required for the MCP integration. The VS Code extension launches urchin mcp as a subprocess directly.- If the
.vscode/mcp.json file is committed to the repo, all team members who open the repo in VS Code will have Urchin available in Copilot Chat (assuming urchin is on their PATH).
