GitLab MCP Server

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📖 Documentation → · llms.txt · llms-full.txt

Default: 40 tools (38 core + discover_tools + help). 288 tools exist in total (285 in toolsets + execute_graphql + discover_tools + help). Start lean; call discover_tools to activate more for this session.

Token budget: MCP clients send the whole tools/list to the model at session start. Keep the default (~40 tools, ~12k schema tokens). Call discover_tools to activate a category for this session (session-only; with OAUTH_STATELESS_MODE=true persist a named GITLAB_TOOLSETS list), or use Skill + CLI and skip MCP schemas. Do not set GITLAB_TOOLSETS=all — it loads ~all tools and costs ~73k schema tokens. See tools/list size and comparison.

Install the zereight-mcp-gitlab binary first with npm install -g @zereight/mcp-gitlab, or Homebrew brew tap zereight/gitlab-mcp https://github.com/zereight/gitlab-mcp and brew install zereight/gitlab-mcp/zereight-mcp-gitlab. Official MCP Registry listing: io.github.zereight/gitlab-mcp. One-liner: npx -y @zereight/mcp-gitlab@latest.

Without → With

Without this MCP	With this MCP
Paste MR URLs and diffs into chat	list_merge_request_changed_files → batched get_merge_request_file_diff
Hunt job logs in the GitLab UI	get_pipeline_job_output with pagination
Re-explain the project path every turn	project_id=group%2Fproject and merge_request_iid=123

Three install paths

Path	When	How
Local IDE	Cursor, Claude Code, Codex on your machine	stdio + PAT or local OAuth
Shared HTTP	Team or hosted MCP	Streamable HTTP URL + remote auth or MCP OAuth
Claude.ai	Claude web connectors	Public HTTPS + GITLAB_MCP_OAUTH

Install

Install the binary first (npm install -g @zereight/mcp-gitlab, or Homebrew brew tap zereight/gitlab-mcp https://github.com/zereight/gitlab-mcp then brew install zereight/gitlab-mcp/zereight-mcp-gitlab). Read the token without echo:

read -rs GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN && export GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN

# Claude Code
claude mcp add gitlab --transport stdio --scope local --env GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN="$GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN" --env GITLAB_API_URL=https://gitlab.com/api/v4 -- zereight-mcp-gitlab

# Codex
codex mcp add gitlab --env GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN="$GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN" --env GITLAB_API_URL=https://gitlab.com/api/v4 -- zereight-mcp-gitlab

Other clients: VS Code · GitHub Copilot · JSON clients · Cursor details

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