Duo, beta features, and an instance or group allowance are each somebody's decision, and in most organisations not the same person's. That is defensible for a server reaching source code, but it means 'try GitLab MCP this afternoon' is usually not available. The pre-registration advice is worth heeding at scale: dynamic registration per client hits rate limits when a team all connect at once.
GitLab's hosted endpoint at their API. Self-managed instances use the same path on their own host. Three things must be switched on before it works at all.
- Project information
- Issue and merge-request data
- Secure interaction with the GitLab API and GitLab-specific operations
GitLab Duo enabled, beta features allowed, and MCP permitted at instance or group level. Then OAuth with dynamic client registration; pre-registering an app avoids hitting registration rate limits.
Paste a URL, then authorize — add the endpoint to your client, then approve the OAuth consent screen