GitLab MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides GitLab integration tools for Claude Code. Interact with GitLab projects, issues, epics, and CI/CD pipelines directly from Claude.

Features

• Issue Management: List, create, update issues, and add comments
• Label Management: List and manage project labels with filtering
• Project Management: View and update project descriptions and topics
• Project Discovery: List all projects of a group recursively, including every subgroup
• Epic Management: List and create epics (Premium/Ultimate tier)
• CI/CD Integration: Monitor pipelines, view job logs, and download traces
• Direct Project Access: Use project paths (namespace/project-name) without ID resolution
• MCP Architecture: Seamless integration with Claude Code via stdio communication

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• GitLab personal access token with api, read_api, and write_api scopes
• Claude Code CLI installed
• Docker (optional, for containerized deployment)

Detailed setup instructions →

Installation

# Install via Homebrew (Recommended for macOS/Linux)
brew tap sgaunet/homebrew-tools
brew install sgaunet/tools/gitlab-mcp

Configuration

# Set your GitLab token
export GITLAB_TOKEN=your_personal_access_token

# Optional: For self-hosted GitLab
export GITLAB_URI=https://your.gitlab.instance

Add to Claude Code

Register the server once for all your projects (-s user):

claude mcp add gitlab-mcp -s user -- gitlab-mcp

This assumes gitlab-mcp is in your PATH (the case after a Homebrew install). If Claude Code cannot find the binary, pass the absolute path instead:

# Apple Silicon Mac
claude mcp add gitlab-mcp -s user -- /opt/homebrew/bin/gitlab-mcp

# Intel Mac / Linux
claude mcp add gitlab-mcp -s user -- /usr/local/bin/gitlab-mcp

Pass the token explicitly with -e if it isn't exported in the environment Claude Code inherits:

claude mcp add gitlab-mcp -s user \
  -e GITLAB_TOKEN=your_personal_access_token \
  -e GITLAB_URI=https://your.gitlab.instance \
  -- gitlab-mcp

Verify the server is connected:

claude mcp list

Other scopes: -s local (current project only, default) or -s project (shared via the project's .mcp.json). See the setup guide for Docker-based registration and manual mcp.json configuration.

CLI Flags (Optional)

Optimize token usage by disabling tool categories you don't need:

# Example: CI/CD debugging only
gitlab-mcp --no-issues --no-labels --no-project-metadata --no-epics

# Example: Issue management only
gitlab-mcp --no-project-metadata --no-epics --no-pipelines

Append the flags after the -- separator when registering the server:

claude mcp add gitlab-mcp -s user -- gitlab-mcp --no-epics --no-pipelines

Available flags: --no-issues, --no-labels, --no-project-metadata, --no-epics, --no-pipelines, --no-merge-requests, --no-projects

Complete CLI configuration →

First Usage

List all open issues for project myorg/myproject

Create an issue with title "Bug fix needed" for project myorg/myproject

Get the latest pipeline for myorg/myproject

List all projects of the myorg group

Documentation

• Setup Guide - Installation, configuration, and Claude Code integration
• Docker Deployment - Container-based deployment and Docker Compose
• Tool Reference - Complete documentation for all available tools
• Development Guide - Contributing, testing, and development workflow
• Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions
• Contributing - How to contribute to the project

Available Tools

Complete tool documentation →

License

MIT License. See LICENSE for details.

Support

For issues, questions, or feature requests, please create an issue in the repository.