Unable to publish under GitHub organisation namespace despite organisation ownership

GitHub username:
premnathm

Organization:
qatouch

Namespace:
io.github.qatouch/qatouch

Repository:
https://github.com/qatouch/qatouch-mcp-server

Environment:
mcp-publisher 1.7.9

Validation:
mcp-publisher validate -> passes

Publishing:
mcp-publisher publish -> 403

Error:
You have permission to publish:
io.github.premnathm/*

Attempting to publish:
io.github.qatouch/qatouch

Additional information:

premnathm is an Owner of the qatouch organization.
Organization membership is Public.
Re-authenticated using mcp-publisher logout/login.
Repository is public.

@premnathm

@premnathm Can you check your role using this curl call to verify? Note: You need correct scope for the token for this to work.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $GH_TOKEN" \
     -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
     https://api.github.com/orgs/ORG_NAME/memberships/YOUR_USERNAME

Hi Team! Premnathm is the owner of the qatouch GitHub organization, so this isn't a case of missing organization permissions or a private membership. Refer to the screenshot

I verified that the organization is owned by the same GitHub account (premnathm) that's being used to publish. If there's anything else you'd like me to check (such as the namespace registration or publisher configuration), let me know and I'm happy to provide additional details.

@premnathm

@premnathm Can you verify this using the token as given in previous comment, it may happen that token scope is not correct. This is the token that you are using to publish the server.

I verified the organization membership using the GitHub API.
The authenticated account is premnathm, and the membership lookup returns:

state: active
role: admin
direct_membership: true

So the account is an active organization owner/admin of the qatouch GitHub organization.
Given that, it appears the 403 Forbidden during publishing is not due to GitHub organization membership or permissions. The registry still reports that the authenticated account is only authorized to publish under io.github.premnathm/* and not io.github.qatouch/*.
Could you please check whether the io.github.qatouch namespace has been registered or mapped to the qatouch GitHub organization on the registry side? If there's any additional setup required to authorize publishing under the organization namespace, please let me know.

@premnathm

@premnathm registry internally doesn't have any mapping, I will debug this further and report back. Thank you for the details!

I'm experiencing the same issue. I tried with 1.7.9 and 1.8.0 and I reproduce it with both.

@premnathm

Hi @premnathm, sorry for the confusion. You were right. This is a bug on our side, not an issue with your organisation permissions.

Since v1.8.0, we check that only organisation Owners can publish under an organisation namespace. The problem is that mcp-publisher login github uses a GitHub App token, which cannot see your organisation role (which makes it to work only for your personal namespace).

That is why io.github.qatouch/qatouch worked before July 13 and stopped after. Nothing changed on your side.

We are working on a proper fix. For now, you can publish with:

mcp-publisher login github --token <YOUR_PAT>
mcp-publisher publish

Use either a classic PAT with read:org, or a fine-grained PAT with Organization → Members → Read-only. GitHub Actions publishing also works.

@kdinev, the same workaround should work for you. The CLI version is not the issue.

Thanks to all for chiming in! 🙏

@pree-dew

@pree-dew @rdimitrov

Thanks for the clarification! The workaround worked perfectly for us.
We'll use a PAT for now. Please let us know once the actual fix is available so we can switch back to the standard login flow.
Thanks for the quick investigation and update!

Hi. The workaround doesn't work for me

I have public org membership
I've tried using the fine-grained PAT owned by the correct org and Members Read-only permission - login is successful, publish returns 403
I've tried using the classic token with read:org permission and authorized it for the correct org - same as above

PS C:\Users\georgii.borovinskikh\Documents\Repos\sonarqube-mcp-server> .\mcp-publisher login github --token <redacted>
Logging in with github...
✓ Successfully logged in
PS C:\Users\georgii.borovinskikh\Documents\Repos\sonarqube-mcp-server> .\mcp-publisher publish                                                      
Publishing to https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io...
Error: publish failed: server returned status 403: {"title":"Forbidden","status":403,"detail":"You do not have permission to publish this server. You have permission to publish: io.github.georgii-borovinskikh-sonarsource/*. Attempting to publish: io.github.SonarSource/sonarqube-mcp-server. If you're trying to publish to a GitHub organization, you may need to make your organization membership public in your GitHub settings: https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/how-tos/organization-membership/publicizing-or-hiding-organization-membership"}

PS C:\Users\georgii.borovinskikh\Documents\Repos\sonarqube-mcp-server> .\mcp-publisher --version                                                    
2026/08/04 16:22:45 mcp-publisher 1.8.0 (commit: d813d2b80552006e61a9e7f9f0562518d76cc85c, built: 2026-07-13T08:44:13Z)

docs(releasing): the PAT is a workaround for an upstream bug, not how…

@georgii-borovinskikh-sonarsource

Adding a data point for @georgii-borovinskikh-sonarsource, since the workaround failing is the only thing still open on this thread.

The workaround works for us on mcp-publisher 1.8.1 (commit f52dc85, built 2026-08-06). The failing run above is on 1.8.0 built 2026-07-13, which predates it — worth re-trying on 1.8.1 before concluding the organisation configuration is at fault.

What worked, publishing io.github.loncadev/baron as an active Owner of loncadev:

mcp-publisher login github --token "$(gh auth token)"   # scopes: gist, read:org, repo, workflow
mcp-publisher publish

Two things that cost an afternoon here and might save someone else theirs:

Plain mcp-publisher login github succeeds and reports nothing wrong. It simply yields the personal namespace only, with no signal at login time that the org namespace was never evaluated. @rdimitrov's explanation above is what made it findable at all — without it the failure looks like a permissions problem on your own side, which is exactly where three of us went looking.
The 403's hint about making organisation membership public is misleading now that the check uses GET /user/memberships/orgs, which explicitly includes private memberships. I made mine public on the strength of that message and it changed nothing — a visible change to a personal profile, made for no reason. Dropping that sentence would probably save more time than anything else short of the fix itself.

We can reproduce this with an existing organization-owned Registry server.

Environment

mcp-publisher: 1.8.1
GitHub user: mozakaria123
GitHub organization: TrigGuard-AI
organization membership: active
organization role: admin/Owner
public membership endpoint: GET /orgs/TrigGuard-AI/public_members/mozakaria123 → HTTP 204

Server: io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard

The organization namespace has previously worked. The Registry currently contains io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard@1.2.0 (published 2026-08-20T00:59:06Z).

We are attempting to publish validated 1.3.1 metadata. The corresponding npm artifact is already public:

@trigguard/mcp@1.3.1
mcpName=io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard

mcp-publisher validate server.json passes.

After mcp-publisher logout and mcp-publisher login github, interactive GitHub authentication succeeds, but publication returns:

403 Forbidden
You do not have permission to publish this server.
You have permission to publish: io.github.mozakaria123/*
Attempting to publish: io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard

GitHub independently confirms the user is an active Owner/admin and a public organization member (HTTP 204).

Expected: authenticated organization Owner authorized for io.github.TrigGuard-AI/*

Actual: only io.github.mozakaria123/* is authorized.

The existing 1.2.0 Registry record is additional evidence that the same organization namespace was previously publishable via interactive GitHub authentication (~22 minutes after npm @trigguard/mcp-server@1.2.0 on 2026-08-20).

Happy to provide additional non-sensitive diagnostics if useful.

Reproduction update (2026-08-25) — public org membership does NOT resolve

Environment: macOS, mcp-publisher GitHub device login (interactive)

GitHub org membership:

User: mozakaria123
Org: TrigGuard-AI
Role: admin, state: active
Public org membership: verified (GET /orgs/TrigGuard-AI/public_members/mozakaria123 → 200)
Only public member listed on org

Steps:

mcp-publisher logout && mcp-publisher login github → ✅ Successfully authenticated
mcp-publisher validate server.json → ✅ valid
mcp-publisher publish server.json for io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard @ 1.3.1

Result:
HTTP 403:

You do not have permission to publish this server. You have permission to publish: io.github.mozakaria123/*. Attempting to publish: io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard.

npm (already live): @trigguard/mcp@1.3.1, mcpName=io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard

Registry still shows: io.github.TrigGuard-AI/trigguard@1.2.0 (@trigguard/mcp-server)

Conclusion: Org OAuth scope regression persists despite public org membership. Request restore of io.github.TrigGuard-AI/* publish authorization for verified org admins.

ci: publish the MCP registry entry on release tags

ci: list releases in the MCP registry from a workflow, by OIDC

Root cause identified + working workaround posted on #1649. Short version: the device-flow GitHub App (MCP Registry Login (Prod)) does not request read:org scope, so the token cannot see org memberships — even public ones. Workaround: exchange a read:org-scoped token directly via POST /v0/auth/github-at.

ci(release): publish each release to the MCP registry via OIDC

fix(publish): correct misleading org-namespace guidance in 403 and docs

fix(publish): correct misleading org-namespace guidance in 403 and do…

Consolidating the related organization device-login reports #1527, #1537, #1551 and #1649 into this tracker, which is now linked from the authentication documentation added in #1483. Those threads preserve affected publishers' diagnostics and PAT/OIDC workaround reports; #1649 also contains the comparison between device-flow and organization-readable credentials. #1483 corrected the error guidance and documentation only. The interactive organization authentication limitation remains unresolved, so this issue stays open.

Add a manual workflow that publishes server.json to the official MCP …

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Unable to publish under GitHub organisation namespace despite organisation ownership #1468

Reproduction update (2026-08-25) — public org membership does NOT resolve

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Unable to publish under GitHub organisation namespace despite organisation ownership #1468

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pree-dew commented on Jul 21, 2026

premnathm commented on Jul 21, 2026

pree-dew commented on Jul 21, 2026

premnathm commented on Jul 21, 2026

pree-dew commented on Jul 21, 2026

kdinev commented on Jul 22, 2026

rdimitrov commented on Jul 27, 2026

premnathm commented on Jul 28, 2026

georgii-borovinskikh-sonarsource commented on Aug 4, 2026

keparlak commented on Aug 14, 2026

mozakaria123 commented on Aug 25, 2026

mozakaria123 commented on Aug 25, 2026

Reproduction update (2026-08-25) — public org membership does NOT resolve

jcolvin1056 commented on Oct 11, 2026

rdimitrov commented on Oct 23, 2026

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