Integrate with GitLab for Code Management

This MCP server provides comprehensive integration with GitLab's API, enabling project management, file operations, and merge requests directly from an AI assistant. Features include automatic branch creation (branches are created automatically if they don't exist), comprehensive error handling with clear messages for common issues, Git history preservation across operations, and batch operations supporting both single-file and multi-file changes in one commit.

Use it when an AI assistant needs to read or write GitLab project files, manage issues and merge requests, or search, fork, and branch GitLab repositories. It works against both GitLab.com and self-hosted GitLab instances by pointing GITLAB_API_URL at the instance's own API endpoint. It is not a GitHub integration - it is scoped specifically to the GitLab API. This server is one of the official Model Context Protocol reference implementations, now maintained in the modelcontextprotocol/servers-archived repository, which is archived and no longer receiving updates.

Nine tools are exposed: create_or_update_file (create or update a single file in a project), push_files (push multiple files in a single commit), search_repositories (search for GitLab projects), create_repository (create a new GitLab project), get_file_contents (get contents of a file or directory), create_issue (create an issue with title, description, assignees, and labels), create_merge_request (create a merge request between branches), fork_repository (fork a project to your namespace), and create_branch (create a new branch from a source ref). A usage example shows asking the assistant to create a merge request in a named project from a feature branch to main with a description of the changes.

npm install -g @modelcontextprotocol/server-gitlab

Then register it in your Claude Code settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gitlab": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@modelcontextprotocol/server-gitlab"],
      "env": {
        "GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "your_token_here",
        "GITLAB_API_URL": "https://gitlab.com/api/v4"
      }
    }
  }
}

Authentication requires a GitLab Personal Access Token scoped to api (full API access), read_api (read-only access), or read_repository/write_repository (repository operations), depending on which tools are needed.

Developers whose AI assistant needs to manage GitLab projects, files, issues, and merge requests directly.