CLI Arguments

Some MCP clients (like GitHub Copilot CLI) don't pass environment variables reliably. For those clients, configure the server with CLI arguments instead.

CLI arguments take precedence over environment variables.

Install the server once:

brew tap zereight/gitlab-mcp https://github.com/zereight/gitlab-mcp
brew install zereight/gitlab-mcp/zereight-mcp-gitlab

Or with npm:

npm install -g @zereight/mcp-gitlab

No global install? Pin npx to the previous stable release and keep the server flags after it, for example npx -y @zereight/mcp-gitlab@2.1.56 --token=.... Use @zereight/mcp-gitlab@latest if you always want the newest release.

Example config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gitlab": {
      "command": "zereight-mcp-gitlab",
      "args": ["--token=YOUR_GITLAB_TOKEN", "--api-url=https://gitlab.com/api/v4"],
      "tools": ["*"]
    }
  }
}

Available arguments

Argument	Equivalent env var	Description
--token	GITLAB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN	GitLab Personal Access Token.
--api-url	GITLAB_API_URL	GitLab API URL (e.g., https://gitlab.com/api/v4).
--read-only=true	GITLAB_READ_ONLY_MODE	Enable read-only mode (deprecated — prefer --permission-mode=readonly).
--permission-mode	GITLAB_PERMISSION_MODE	readonly, modify (no delete tools), or full.
--use-wiki=true	USE_GITLAB_WIKI	Enable wiki API tools.
--use-milestone=true	USE_MILESTONE	Enable milestone API tools.
--use-pipeline=true	USE_PIPELINE	Enable pipeline API tools.
--disable-version-check=true	GITLAB_DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK	Disable the startup new-version notice.

Deprecation notice: --read-only=true and GITLAB_READ_ONLY_MODE are kept for backward compatibility but will be removed in a future major version. Use --permission-mode=readonly or GITLAB_PERMISSION_MODE=readonly instead.

Subcommands

Subcommands are not MCP server flags. They run and exit without starting the MCP server.

auth

Run GitLab's OAuth Device Authorization Grant (GitLab 17.9+; 17.2–17.8 need oauth2_device_grant_flow) and store a token at ~/.gitlab-mcp-token.json (or GITLAB_OAUTH_TOKEN_PATH). This complements the existing localhost callback flow; it does not replace it.

zereight-mcp-gitlab auth --client-id YOUR_APP_ID
zereight-mcp-gitlab auth --client-id YOUR_APP_ID --api-url https://gitlab.example.com/api/v4
zereight-mcp-gitlab auth --help

Argument	Equivalent env var	Description
--client-id	GITLAB_OAUTH_CLIENT_ID	GitLab OAuth application ID.
--api-url	GITLAB_API_URL	GitLab API URL; /api/v4 is stripped to origin.
--token-path	GITLAB_OAUTH_TOKEN_PATH	Token file path.

After auth succeeds, start the MCP server with GITLAB_USE_OAUTH=true and the same client ID. If you use --token-path, set GITLAB_OAUTH_TOKEN_PATH to the same path when you start the server. See OAuth2 Authentication Setup Guide.

For the full list of configuration options, see Environment Variables.