Delegate work to your agent

Accessing GitHub

Connect your agent to GitHub repositories for cloning, reading, and creating pull requests.

You can mount a GitHub repository to your session container and connect to the GitHub MCP for making pull requests.

GitHub repositories are cached, so future sessions that use the same repository start faster.

All Managed Agents API requests require the managed-agents-2026-04-01 beta header. The SDK sets the beta header automatically.

GitHub MCP and Session Resources

First, create an agent that declares the GitHub MCP server. The agent definition holds the server URL but no auth token:

agent_id=$(curl -fsS https://api.anthropic.com/v1/agents \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  --data @- <<JSON | jq -r '.id'
{
  "name": "Code Reviewer",
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
  "system": "You are a code review assistant with access to GitHub.",
  "mcp_servers": [
    {
      "type": "url",
      "name": "github",
      "url": "https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/"
    }
  ],
  "tools": [
    {"type": "agent_toolset_20260401"},
    {
      "type": "mcp_toolset",
      "mcp_server_name": "github"
    }
  ]
}
JSON
)

Then create a session that mounts the GitHub repository:

session_id=$(curl -fsS https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  --data @- <<JSON | jq -r '.id'
{
  "agent": "$agent_id",
  "environment_id": "$environment_id",
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "github_repository",
      "url": "https://github.com/org/repo",
      "mount_path": "/workspace/repo",
      "authorization_token": "ghp_your_github_token"
    }
  ]
}
JSON
)

The resources[].authorization_token authenticates the repository clone operation and is not echoed in API responses.

Token permissions

When providing a GitHub token, use the minimum required permissions:

Action	Required scopes
Clone private repos	`repo`
Create PRs	`repo`
Read issues	`repo` (private) or `public_repo`
Create issues	`repo` (private) or `public_repo`

Use fine-grained personal access tokens with minimum required permissions. Avoid using tokens with broad access to your GitHub account.

Multiple repositories

Mount multiple repositories by adding entries to the resources array:

resources='[
  {
    "type": "github_repository",
    "url": "https://github.com/org/frontend",
    "mount_path": "/workspace/frontend",
    "authorization_token": "ghp_your_github_token"
  },
  {
    "type": "github_repository",
    "url": "https://github.com/org/backend",
    "mount_path": "/workspace/backend",
    "authorization_token": "ghp_your_github_token"
  }
]'

Managing repositories on a running session

After a session is created, you can list its repository resources and rotate their authorization tokens. Each resource has an id returned at session creation time (or via resources.list) that you use for updates. Repositories are attached for the lifetime of the session; to change which repositories are mounted, create a new session.

# List resources on the session
repo_resource_id=$(curl -fsS "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions/$session_id/resources" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" | jq -r '.data[0].id')
echo "$repo_resource_id"  # "sesrsc_01ABC..."

# Rotate the authorization token
curl -fsS "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions/$session_id/resources/$repo_resource_id" \
# ...
  -o /dev/null \
  --data @- <<JSON
{
  "authorization_token": "ghp_your_new_github_token"
}
JSON

Creating pull requests

With the GitHub MCP server, the agent can create branches, commit changes, and push them:

curl -fsS "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions/$session_id/events" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -o /dev/null \
  --data @- <<JSON
{
  "events": [
    {
      "type": "user.message",
      "content": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "text": "Fix the type error in src/utils.ts, commit it to a new branch, and push it."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
JSON

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Delegate work to your agent

Accessing GitHub

Connect your agent to GitHub repositories for cloning, reading, and creating pull requests.

You can mount a GitHub repository to your session container and connect to the GitHub MCP for making pull requests.

GitHub repositories are cached, so future sessions that use the same repository start faster.

All Managed Agents API requests require the managed-agents-2026-04-01 beta header. The SDK sets the beta header automatically.

GitHub MCP and Session Resources

First, create an agent that declares the GitHub MCP server. The agent definition holds the server URL but no auth token:

agent_id=$(curl -fsS https://api.anthropic.com/v1/agents \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  --data @- <<JSON | jq -r '.id'
{
  "name": "Code Reviewer",
  "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
  "system": "You are a code review assistant with access to GitHub.",
  "mcp_servers": [
    {
      "type": "url",
      "name": "github",
      "url": "https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/"
    }
  ],
  "tools": [
    {"type": "agent_toolset_20260401"},
    {
      "type": "mcp_toolset",
      "mcp_server_name": "github"
    }
  ]
}
JSON
)

Then create a session that mounts the GitHub repository:

session_id=$(curl -fsS https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  --data @- <<JSON | jq -r '.id'
{
  "agent": "$agent_id",
  "environment_id": "$environment_id",
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "github_repository",
      "url": "https://github.com/org/repo",
      "mount_path": "/workspace/repo",
      "authorization_token": "ghp_your_github_token"
    }
  ]
}
JSON
)

The resources[].authorization_token authenticates the repository clone operation and is not echoed in API responses.

Token permissions

When providing a GitHub token, use the minimum required permissions:

Action	Required scopes
Clone private repos	`repo`
Create PRs	`repo`
Read issues	`repo` (private) or `public_repo`
Create issues	`repo` (private) or `public_repo`

Use fine-grained personal access tokens with minimum required permissions. Avoid using tokens with broad access to your GitHub account.

Multiple repositories

Mount multiple repositories by adding entries to the resources array:

resources='[
  {
    "type": "github_repository",
    "url": "https://github.com/org/frontend",
    "mount_path": "/workspace/frontend",
    "authorization_token": "ghp_your_github_token"
  },
  {
    "type": "github_repository",
    "url": "https://github.com/org/backend",
    "mount_path": "/workspace/backend",
    "authorization_token": "ghp_your_github_token"
  }
]'

Managing repositories on a running session

# List resources on the session
repo_resource_id=$(curl -fsS "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions/$session_id/resources" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" | jq -r '.data[0].id')
echo "$repo_resource_id"  # "sesrsc_01ABC..."

# Rotate the authorization token
curl -fsS "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions/$session_id/resources/$repo_resource_id" \
# ...
  -o /dev/null \
  --data @- <<JSON
{
  "authorization_token": "ghp_your_new_github_token"
}
JSON

Creating pull requests

With the GitHub MCP server, the agent can create branches, commit changes, and push them:

curl -fsS "https://api.anthropic.com/v1/sessions/$session_id/events" \
  -H "x-api-key: $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" \
  -H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
  -H "anthropic-beta: managed-agents-2026-04-01" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -o /dev/null \
  --data @- <<JSON
{
  "events": [
    {
      "type": "user.message",
      "content": [
        {
          "type": "text",
          "text": "Fix the type error in src/utils.ts, commit it to a new branch, and push it."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
JSON

Was this page helpful?