Copilot for JetBrains gets enterprise MCP allowlists and agent permission locks

GitHub Copilot for JetBrains now supports enterprise managed settings. In an August 18, 2026 changelog entry, GitHub said administrators can apply consistent controls for everyone on an enterprise Copilot plan—plugin governance, MCP server access, OpenTelemetry, and permission modes included.

Read that as JetBrains catching up to Copilot’s shared governance file, not as a new policy language. The enterprise managed settings reference documents one managed-settings.json schema for Copilot clients, with a JetBrains IDEs column next to Copilot CLI, VS Code, the GitHub Copilot app, and the Copilot cloud agent. The changelog is blunt about the gap it is closing: the new MCP keys bring centrally managed MCP governance into JetBrains IDEs and prevent connections to servers outside the enterprise allowlist.

MCP allowlists land in the JetBrains client

Administrators can now use allowedMcpServers and deniedMcpServers to control which MCP servers developers may connect to from GitHub Copilot for JetBrains.

The reference defines the pairing. allowedMcpServers is an allowlist of servers permitted to run; any server that does not match is blocked. Omit the key and all servers are allowed, subject to deny rules. deniedMcpServers entries are unconditionally blocked, even when they also match the allowlist.

GitHub’s example configuration matches on serverUrl—including a GitHub Copilot API wildcard—or on serverCommand, such as an npx invocation of @playwright/mcp@latest or a uvx MarkItDown MCP. A deny example blocks @modelcontextprotocol/server-filesystem when it is launched against /. Those are the same keys the JetBrains announcement now says you can enforce from the center.

allowedMcpServers and deniedMcpServers can be marked overridable in managed-settings.json with the { "overridable": <VALUE> } syntax. Server-managed deployments can then give enterprise teams different allow and deny lists, falling back to the enterprise default when a team leaves a key unset.

Plugins and marketplaces, locked from the center

The changelog also adds enterprise-managed plugin governance inside JetBrains IDEs, with three settings:

Enabled plugins. enabledPlugins requires a plugin to be enabled or disabled.
Additional marketplaces. extraKnownMarketplaces makes approved plugin sources available.
Restricted marketplaces. strictKnownMarketplaces limits installation to approved sources.

The reference fills in the shapes. Each enabledPlugins entry uses PLUGIN-NAME@MARKETPLACE-NAME as the key and a boolean value: true to require the plugin enabled, false to require it disabled. extraKnownMarketplaces is a map of named marketplace objects with a source. strictKnownMarketplaces is a list of marketplace objects; an empty array means complete lockdown.

extraKnownMarketplaces supports only github (OWNER/REPO, optional ref/path), git (url), and directory (path). strictKnownMarketplaces is the longer list: github, git, url, npm, file, directory, hostPattern, and pathPattern. enabledPlugins and extraKnownMarketplaces are additive across enterprise and team files: the enterprise managed-settings.json sets a baseline, and a team file can add more plugins and marketplaces on top. Unlike the MCP keys, those two are not in the overridable list—they accumulate.

Managed OpenTelemetry overrides the IDE

Administrators can centrally configure OpenTelemetry for Copilot in JetBrains IDEs, including the collector endpoint, protocol, service name, resource attributes, and content-capture policy. Managed values take precedence over developer settings, so usage data is routed to the approved collector rather than whatever a local panel would have chosen.

Developers are not left guessing. GitHub says they can review the applied configuration under Settings > Tools > GitHub Copilot > Chat > OpenTelemetry.

The reference documents the telemetry object with enabled, endpoint, protocol (http/json or http/protobuf), captureContent, lockCaptureContent, serviceName, resourceAttributes, and HTTP headers. The JetBrains-specific claim in the changelog is narrower and operational: those managed values now win inside the IDE.

A kill switch for Bypass Approvals and Autopilot

The permission lock is permissions.disableBypassPermissionsMode. Set it to disable and the Copilot agent in JetBrains cannot use Bypass Approvals or Autopilot.

That is the same key the reference describes as the bypass—or “YOLO”—kill switch. Bypass mode lets an agent run commands, access files, and fetch URLs without asking for approval. On Copilot CLI, disable suppresses --yolo, --allow-all, --allow-all-tools, --allow-all-paths, --allow-all-urls, and the /yolo and /allow-all slash commands. In VS Code it turns off chat.tools.global.autoApprove and keeps it off. In the GitHub Copilot app it blocks the “Allow all” setting for tool permissions. JetBrains now exposes the matching enterprise control under the Bypass Approvals and Autopilot names.

The key is overridable by enterprise team mapping. Mark it { "overridable": "disable" } in the enterprise file and a team file can set "disableBypassPermissionsMode": "unmanaged" so that team’s members are not bound by the enterprise default.

Same file, same precedence

This is not a JetBrains-only sidecar format. When several settings sources are present, the reference applies this order: MDM-managed settings, then server-managed settings, then file-based settings, then user-level settings. Earlier sources win. The reference calls out Copilot CLI’s sandbox key as an exception that combines toward the most restrictive setting. The August 18 JetBrains changelog does not mention sandbox or remoteControl, so treat those as unknown for this client until the reference or a later note says otherwise.

GitHub’s try-it guidance is the latest GitHub Copilot plugin for JetBrains, plus the enterprise managed settings reference. Feedback can go through the in-product options, the Copilot IntelliJ feedback repository, or GitHub Community.

If you already maintain managed-settings.json for other Copilot clients, open that file and confirm allowedMcpServers, deniedMcpServers, the plugin marketplace keys, telemetry, and permissions.disableBypassPermissionsMode match the policy you want on JetBrains. Then install the latest plugin so those IDEs stop being the unmanaged exception.