Add minimal response to CRUD tools, repositories and search toolsets

[mattdholloway]

This aims to reduce the output from the 'worst offending' MCP tools for response length. The main changes are the introduction of new minimal types for API responses, updates to CRUD handlers to use these minimal types, and enhancements to search and commit tools for more configurable output. These changes simplify responses and make the API easier to consume for clients that only need essential information.

Tools Modified

Search and Listing Tools (Added Parameters)

search_repositories - Added minimal_output parameter (default: true) to return minimal repository information instead of full GitHub API objects
get_commit - Added include_diff parameter (default: true) to optionally include file diffs and stats in the response

List Tools (Modified to Return Minimal Objects)

list_commits - Modified to return minimal commit objects with essential fields only
list_branches - Modified to return minimal branch objects (name, SHA, protected status)

CRUD Tools (Modified to Return URL-Only Response)

create_repository - Modified to return minimal response containing only the repository URL
fork_repository - Modified to return minimal response containing only the repository URL
create_pull_request - Modified to return minimal response containing only the pull request URL
update_pull_request - Modified to return minimal response containing only the pull request URL
create_issue - Modified to return minimal response containing only the issue URL
update_issue - Modified to return minimal response containing only the issue URL
create_gist - Modified to return minimal response containing only the gist URL
update_gist - Modified to return minimal response containing only the gist URL

[tonytrg]

Great work! I have not been much involved in the recent discussions about the size of tool call responses,
so this is just some thinking out loud. Nothing that blocks this pr.

but do you think instead of selectively picking specific tools and downsizing their response we could do:

• new param responsemode
  • optional
  • default minimal
  • values: minimal, full

Something reusable for every other tool where the api response is unnecessary long.

So kinda stays the same as this pr, only now they can fall back to the old/full response if they need to.

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR adds minimal response options to various GitHub MCP tools to reduce output verbosity. The changes introduce optional parameters to return concise responses instead of full GitHub API objects, addressing the need for more efficient data transfer in MCP tools.

• Added minimal_output parameter to search_repositories (default: true) and include_diff parameter to get_commit (default: true)
• Modified list operations (list_commits, list_branches) to return minimal objects by default
• Updated CRUD operations to return only URLs in minimal response format

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 15 out of 15 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
pkg/github/server.go	Added OptionalBoolParamWithDefault helper function
pkg/github/search.go	Added minimal output option to repository search
pkg/github/repositories.go	Updated commit and branch operations to use minimal responses
pkg/github/pullrequests.go	Modified PR CRUD operations to return minimal responses
pkg/github/issues.go	Updated issue CRUD operations to return minimal responses
pkg/github/gists.go	Modified gist CRUD operations to return minimal responses
pkg/github/minimal_types.go	Added new minimal response type definitions
Test files	Updated tests to verify minimal response formats
Documentation	Updated README and tool snapshots with new parameters

---

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[LuluBeatson]

Estimated output length savings

Token counts provided with OpenAI tokenizer for reference, but proporional savings will be similar across models.

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New: 20 tokens

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