GitHub Copilot How to use Google Search with GitHub Copilot
You want Google Search inside GitHub Copilot so it can research a technical question, compare competing products, find authoritative sources, and monitor a topic for new coverage — without you copy-pasting between tabs. Here is the whole setup, once.
Create your Google Search gateway
The gateway is the thing GitHub Copilot connects to, and it is where you decide which Google Search tools an agent may use. You create it once and every client reuses it.
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Create an Arcade account
Sign up and open the dashboard. The free tier is enough to follow this through.
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Create an MCP Gateway and select your Google Search tools
In the dashboard, create a gateway and pick the Google Search tools you want to expose. The gateway is what your client connects to, and it is where tool access is decided.
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Copy your gateway URL
Every client below needs it.
https://api.arcade.dev/mcp/<YOUR-GATEWAY-SLUG>
Connect the gateway to GitHub Copilot
JetBrains IDEs do not support remote MCP servers with Dynamic Client Registration — configure the gateway as “Arcade Headers” in the dashboard first. Setup also differs on Visual Studio, Eclipse and Xcode; check the docs for yours.
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In VS Code
Copilot picks up MCP servers configured in VS Code automatically, so follow the VS Code steps and you are done.
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In JetBrains IDEs
Copilot icon → Open Chat → Agent mode → tools icon → “+ Add More Tools…”, which opens mcp.json.
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Add the gateway with Arcade Headers
{ "servers": { "mcp-arcade": { "url": "https://api.arcade.dev/mcp/<YOUR-GATEWAY-SLUG>", "requestInit": { "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer {arcade_api_key}", "Arcade-User-ID": "{arcade_user_id}" } } } } }
Full GitHub Copilot guide in the docs steps verified 2026-08-13
Try these search prompts
GitHub Copilot can now act on your Google Search account. Click a prompt to copy it.
Keep Google Search read-only and treat returned pages as untrusted input. Pair it with Contextual Access policies to control which agents can search with the shared credential and keep search results from authorizing other actions.
