gitlab-kanban

This MCP server implements a GitLab Kanban board integration. It exposes a set of tools that allow you to read and modify tasks on a GitLab project Kanban board directly through the MCP framework. Available operations include listing tasks on a Kanban board, creating new tasks, updating existing tasks, deleting tasks, and adding comments to tasks. The server is written in TypeScript/Node.js and is designed to be run under the MCP runtime, communicating over standard input/output. To use it, configure the MCP runtime with the provided server entry point, supply the necessary GitLab credentials via environment variables, and then invoke the tools via the MCP protocol.

In practice, you would start the MCP server as part of your cline_mcp_settings.json (or equivalent MCP configuration) and then call the tools through the MCP client interface. The tooling supports common Kanban operations such as retrieving a list of tasks for a project, creating a new task on a specific board column, updating task fields or status, removing tasks, and appending comments to tasks for collaboration. Developers can extend or customize handlers by modifying the src/tools and src/api layers as described in the repository structure.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (version compatible with the project, typically LTS)
• npm or pnpm

Install and build:

# 1) Install dependencies
npm install

# 2) Build the server (TypeScript to JavaScript)
npm run build

Development workflow (optional):

# 3) Run in watch mode for automatic rebuilds during development
npm run watch

Configuration:

• Create a .env file or set environment variables as described in the README, e.g.:

GITLAB_TOKEN=your_gitlab_token
GITLAB_URL=https://gitlab.com

Running the server:

# Example to start the MCP server entry point (adjust path to built index.js as needed)
node path/to/gitlab-kanban-mcp-server/build/index.js

Tips:

• Ensure GITLAB_TOKEN has sufficient permissions to read/write the target project Kanban board.
• If GITLAB_URL is not provided, the default is https://gitlab.com.
• The MCP configuration example uses a single server named gitlab-kanban-mcp-server; you can rename it to fit your cline_mcp_settings.json naming conventions.
• The server communicates over stdio; for debugging, you can use the MCP Inspector tool mentioned in the README to observe requests and responses.
• If you modify source code, remember to rebuild before running the server to pick up changes.

Common issues:

• Token or URL misconfiguration leading to authentication errors: verify environment variables and GitLab permissions.
• Build failures due to TypeScript compilation: ensure the correct TypeScript version and dependencies are installed, and run npm install before npm run build.