gitea-mcp

A Model Context Protocol server for Gitea — lets AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, and anything else that speaks MCP) read, create, and manage issues, repositories, and releases on any Gitea instance you can reach.

Also works against Forgejo and Codeberg (API-compatible).

Why

Self-hosted Gitea is a popular GitHub alternative for solo developers, small teams, and privacy-conscious organizations. With this MCP server installed, your AI assistant can:

• File audit findings or refactor notes as Gitea issues without you leaving the chat
• Triage a repo's open issues in natural language
• Cut a release at the end of a coding session
• Comment on issues across multiple repos in one pass

Features

Resource	Tools
Issues	create_issue, list_issues, get_issue, update_issue, add_comment
Repos	list_repos, list_labels, list_milestones, list_branches
Pulls	list_pull_requests, get_pull_request, add_comment_on_pr, create_pr, merge_pr
Files	read_file, commit_changes, create_branch
Releases	list_releases, create_release
Meta	get_server_info, get_server_version

• Bearer authentication via Personal Access Token (PAT)
• Async HTTP via httpx and FastMCP
• Works with self-hosted Gitea, Forgejo, and Codeberg

Quick Start

1. Install

pip install gitea-mcp

Or with uv:

uv pip install gitea-mcp

2. Generate a Personal Access Token

In your Gitea instance, go to Settings → Applications → Generate New Token and grant at least:

• read:repository
• write:issue
• read:user

Add write:repository if you also want to create releases.

3. Configure your MCP client

Claude Desktop (interactive): run

gitea-mcp init

It prompts for the Gitea URL and Personal Access Token, verifies the connection, and writes (or merges into) the right claude_desktop_config.json for your OS. Restart Claude Desktop and you're done.

To check that the server can reach your Gitea instance at any time:

gitea-mcp doctor

doctor reads GITEA_URL and GITEA_TOKEN from the environment, runs a GET /api/v1/user, and reports the authenticated username plus the state of the MCP tool surface. Exit 0 = ready; exit 1 = connection/load failure; exit 2 = missing config.

Any MCP client (manual): add gitea-mcp to the client's MCP config. The recommended form uses uvx so the client launches the latest published wheel in an isolated env without needing gitea-mcp on its own PATH (this is what gitea-mcp init writes):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gitea": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["gitea-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "GITEA_URL": "https://your-gitea-instance.example.com",
        "GITEA_TOKEN": "your-personal-access-token"
      }
    }
  }
}

If you'd rather use a globally pip-installed gitea-mcp binary, drop args and set command to "gitea-mcp" directly — works as long as the binary is on the MCP client's PATH at launch time.

See mcp.json for a complete example. The same shape works for Claude Desktop, VS Code, Cowork, Claude Code, and any other MCP-compatible client.

Configuration

Configuration is read from environment variables.

Variable	Required	Default	Description
GITEA_URL	Yes	—	Base URL of your Gitea instance (e.g., https://gitea.example.com)
GITEA_TOKEN	Yes	—	Personal Access Token from your Gitea user settings
GITEA_TIMEOUT	No	30	HTTP request timeout in seconds
GITEA_MAX_RETRIES	No	3	Max retries for transient failures on idempotent methods (GET/PUT/DELETE). Set to 0 to disable retries. POST and PATCH are never auto-retried — they could create duplicate issues, comments, or releases. 429 Too Many Requests is retried for any method, honoring Retry-After when present.
GITEA_RETRY_BASE_DELAY	No	0.5	Base delay (seconds) for exponential backoff between retries. Effective delay grows as base * 2^attempt with jitter, capped at 4 seconds.

Self-hosting / HTTP transport

By default gitea-mcp runs in stdio mode — each MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cowork, etc.) launches its own subprocess on demand. For self-hosting one instance that multiple clients connect to over the network, use the streamable-HTTP transport:

gitea-mcp serve --transport http --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000 --path /mcp

All four flags can also be provided via environment variables (handy for Docker / systemd units):

Variable	Default	Flag
GITEA_MCP_TRANSPORT	stdio	--transport
GITEA_MCP_HOST	127.0.0.1	--host
GITEA_MCP_PORT	8000	--port
GITEA_MCP_PATH	/mcp	--path

MCP clients connect to the resulting URL (e.g. https://gitea-mcp.example.com/mcp) just like they would to a local stdio server, except they share the one running instance.

Auth model (this release). The server reads GITEA_TOKEN from its own environment, so any client that reaches the URL acts as that one Gitea user. Run it for yourself behind your own access controls (firewall, reverse-proxy auth, VPN, Tailscale). Multi-tenant bring-your-own-token is on the roadmap.

The no-args invocation (gitea-mcp with no subcommand) still runs in stdio mode, so existing Claude Desktop / Cowork / Claude Code integrations are unaffected by this addition.

Compatibility

Server	Status
Gitea (self-hosted)	✅ Primary target
Forgejo	✅ Expected to work (API-compatible)
Codeberg	✅ Expected to work (Codeberg runs Forgejo)

Development

git clone https://github.com/werebear73/gitea-mcp.git
cd gitea-mcp
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pre-commit install                       # commit-stage hooks (ruff + mypy)
pre-commit install --hook-type pre-push  # push-stage hooks (pytest + build check)
pytest

The two-stage pre-commit policy keeps the commit loop snappy (lint + type only) while making git push block on the slow stuff that's actually caught CI/release bugs in the past — the full test suite and python -m build && twine check dist/*, which surfaces setuptools_scm version surprises before they reach a tag push.

Roadmap

See docs/ROADMAP.md for what's shipped, what's next, and what's out of scope.

Publishing

• MCP Registry metadata is tracked in server.json.
• Smithery + MCP Registry publication steps are documented in docs/PUBLISHING.md.

Versioning

Semantic versioning, derived from git tags via setuptools_scm. See VERSIONING.md for the release process.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome. For substantial changes, please open an issue first to discuss the approach.

License

MIT — use it however you like, including commercial products.

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