GitHub Copilot CLI

Valency Bond™ works with the GitHub Copilot CLI (opens in new tab) over MCP using OAuth. Installing the Valency plugin brings the MCP connection and the research skills in one step.

Copilot CLI only

Valency Bond is supported in the Copilot CLI. The Copilot coding agent and Copilot code review do not currently support its remote OAuth MCP server.

Prerequisite

• The Copilot CLI installed and working (copilot --version returns a version)

Setup

1. Add the Valency marketplace and install the plugin:

   copilot plugin marketplace add valency-oss/valency-connectors && \
     copilot plugin install valency@valency-copilot-plugin

2. Start the Copilot CLI:

   copilot

3. Authenticate Valency:

   Copilot CLI

   /mcp auth valency

   Sign in when the browser opens.

   Note

   A Valency account is created automatically the first time you sign in. The email you use does not have to match the email on your GitHub account.

4. Verify the connection:

   Copilot CLI

   /mcp

   valency appears as connected, with the Valency tools (paper search, author lookup, citation lookup, trend analysis, and more) listed.

5. Ask (more prompt ideas):

   Use Valency to search for papers about quantum computing

You're connected

You see paper results in your terminal. You can also explicitly invoke Valency tool calls.

Skills

The plugin also installs a set of multi-step research workflows on top of the MCP tools. Each one is a prescribed chain of tool calls, not a single search.

Skill	Ask things like
profile	"Who is Yoshua Bengio and what do they work on?"
landscape	"Give me a landscape of cs.LG"
similar	"Find papers similar to arXiv 1706.03762"
trends	"Is diffusion model research still growing?"
network	"Who does Yann LeCun collaborate with?"
reading-list	"What should a student of geometric deep learning be reading?"
fresh-collaborators	"Who should this researcher be talking to that they aren't already?"

Trigger a skill by slash command or natural language:

Copilot CLI

/valency:profile Yoshua Bengio
What should David Hogg be reading next?

Troubleshooting

Plugin didn't install cleanly? Run copilot plugin list to confirm valency is present. If the marketplace step failed, re-add it with copilot plugin marketplace add valency-oss/valency-connectors and install again.

Tools don't appear? Confirm /mcp shows valency as connected. If auth completed but no tools appear, restart copilot so it picks up the new server connection.

Need to start over? Remove the plugin and its marketplace, then reinstall:

copilot plugin uninstall valency && \
  copilot plugin marketplace remove valency-copilot-plugin

The add command uses the repository source. Copilot CLI registers that marketplace under its manifest name, valency-copilot-plugin, which the remove command expects.

---

Need help?

If something isn't working, check Troubleshooting for common fixes. See the FAQ for general questions, or report an issue if you're still stuck.