Add the Gitea MCP server to Windsurf

Prerequisites

• Windsurf 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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gitea": {
      "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

Windsurf's Cascade reads MCP servers from an "mcpServers" object in ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json. Unlike most clients, remote servers are configured with the "serverUrl" field rather than "url", so a config that uses "url" silently fails to connect. Native remote transport is supported without an OAuth flow.