Add the Gitea MCP server to VS Code

Prerequisites

• VS Code installed.
• GITEA_HOST — Base URL of your Gitea instance, e.g. https://gitea.com or your self-hosted host. Equivalent to the --host flag.
• GITEA_ACCESS_TOKEN — A Gitea personal access token. Equivalent to the --token flag.

Setup

{
  "servers": {
    "gitea": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run",
        "-i",
        "--rm",
        "-e",
        "GITEA_ACCESS_TOKEN",
        "-e",
        "GITEA_HOST",
        "docker.gitea.com/gitea-mcp-server",
        "-t",
        "stdio"
      ],
      "env": {
        "GITEA_HOST": "<GITEA_HOST>",
        "GITEA_ACCESS_TOKEN": "<GITEA_ACCESS_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Gotchas

• VS Code uses the `servers` key (not `mcpServers`) and requires `type`.

VS Code is the exception to every other client: its top-level key is "servers", not "mcpServers", and each entry needs an explicit "type" (for example "http" or "stdio"). Secrets are not inlined; instead you declare an "inputs" array and reference each value as ${input:id}, so VS Code prompts for it once and never writes it to disk. Remote servers connect natively with OAuth.