Environment
- Claude Cowork (desktop app), Windows 11
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- Team plan (organization: single-admin)
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- engineering plugin v1.2.0 from Anthropic & Partners marketplace ("Last updated 6 days ago" as of 2026-07-30)
Summary
The GitHub MCP connector bundled with the engineering plugin is in a stuck half-connected state that cannot be cleared from the UI:
- Settings → Customize → Plugins → Engineering → Connectors shows GitHub as connected, with a Disconnect button.
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- The Disconnect button is completely unresponsive (no click feedback, no state change, nothing in UI).
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- In every Cowork session (including brand-new tasks), the server
plugin:engineering:github never becomes available. Session status reports it as "requires authentication" or "didn't finish connecting." ToolSearch finds no GitHub tools.
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- Verified on the GitHub side (github.com/settings/apps/authorizations and /settings/applications): no OAuth grant for the GitHub MCP server exists at all — neither under Authorized GitHub Apps nor Authorized OAuth Apps. The only Anthropic-related grant is the separate "Claude" GitHub App (the claude.ai file-attach integration), which works fine. So the plugin connector's OAuth flow appears to have never completed, while the Cowork UI records it as connected.
Repro / troubleshooting already attempted (no effect)
- Full quit of the desktop app (including system tray) and relaunch → Disconnect still unresponsive
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- Toggling the Engineering plugin off and back on from the plugin detail page → connector still shows Connected/Disconnect, still unresponsive
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- Starting fresh Cowork tasks → server still fails to connect ("didn't finish connecting")
Expected
Either the connector completes OAuth and its tools load, or Disconnect works so the stuck record can be cleared and the flow retried.
Impact
GitHub tools are unusable in Cowork despite the UI reporting a healthy connection. The misleading "Connected" state cost significant debugging time (user + Claude session) before the half-completed OAuth was identified as the root cause. Notably, all other plugin-bundled connectors in the same install (datadog, pagerduty, linear, notion, figma, etc.) correctly show as not connected / requiring authentication — only GitHub is in this phantom state, which is consistent with an earlier connect attempt that partially wrote state before failing.
(Filed with the user's permission from a Cowork session via Claude in Chrome, since the connector issue itself prevented in-product reporting paths.)
Environment
Summary
The GitHub MCP connector bundled with the engineering plugin is in a stuck half-connected state that cannot be cleared from the UI:
plugin:engineering:githubnever becomes available. Session status reports it as "requires authentication" or "didn't finish connecting." ToolSearch finds no GitHub tools.Repro / troubleshooting already attempted (no effect)
Expected
Either the connector completes OAuth and its tools load, or Disconnect works so the stuck record can be cleared and the flow retried.
Impact
GitHub tools are unusable in Cowork despite the UI reporting a healthy connection. The misleading "Connected" state cost significant debugging time (user + Claude session) before the half-completed OAuth was identified as the root cause. Notably, all other plugin-bundled connectors in the same install (datadog, pagerduty, linear, notion, figma, etc.) correctly show as not connected / requiring authentication — only GitHub is in this phantom state, which is consistent with an earlier connect attempt that partially wrote state before failing.
(Filed with the user's permission from a Cowork session via Claude in Chrome, since the connector issue itself prevented in-product reporting paths.)