How to connect Gitea to Claude Cowork

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Claude Cowork logo
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Introduction

Cowork is Anthropic's AI agent for knowledge work. Think of it as Claude Code for everything else. It works autonomously with your computer, local files, and applications to accomplish complex tasks.

This guide walks you through the easiest and most secure way to connect your Gitea account to Cowork via Composio Connect, enabling it to list all open issues in your repository, create a new pull request for dev branch, get commit history for a specific file, and more such actions on your behalf without compromising your account security.

Also integrate Gitea with

Connecting Gitea to Claude Cowork

1. Open Customize

In Claude Desktop, click Customize in the left sidebar, then select Connectors and click the + icon at the top.

Claude Desktop connectors screen with Add custom connector selected

2. Add the Composio MCP server

Click Add custom connector and paste in the Composio MCP server URL:

bash
https://connect.composio.dev/mcp
Add custom connector dialog with Composio MCP server URL

3. Authorize in your browser

Click Connect. You'll be redirected to a browser window where you can authorize Composio to continue.

Composio authorization screen for Claude Cowork

4. Connect your Gitea account

Back in Cowork, ask the agent to connect to Gitea or give it any Gitea-related task.

For example, ask Cowork to:

  • "List all open issues in your repository"
  • "Create a new pull request for dev branch"
  • "Get commit history for a specific file"

It will prompt you to authenticate and authorize access.

That's it. Composio's tools are now available in Cowork, and your Gitea account is ready to use.

What is Claude Cowork?

Claude Cowork is Anthropic's agent for general knowledge work. It can use your computer, files, and connected applications to complete longer-running tasks across your work tools.

With Composio Connect, Cowork can securely access apps like Gitea through MCP without you sharing account credentials directly with the agent.

What is the Gitea MCP server, and what's possible with it?

The Gitea MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Gitea account. It provides structured and secure access so your agent can perform Gitea operations on your behalf.

Supported Tools & Triggers

Tools
Get ActivityPub Person ActorTool to retrieve the ActivityPub Person actor for a Gitea user.
Get General API SettingsTool to retrieve the Gitea instance's global API settings including pagination limits and response size constraints.
Get General Attachment SettingsTool to retrieve the Gitea instance's global settings for file attachments including enabled status, allowed file types, size limits, and file count limits.
Get General Repository SettingsTool to retrieve the Gitea instance's global settings for repositories including feature flags for mirroring, HTTP Git, migrations, stars, time tracking, and LFS.
Get General UI SettingsTool to retrieve the Gitea instance's global settings for UI including default theme, allowed reactions, and custom emojis.
Get Gitignore Template InfoTool to retrieve information about a specific gitignore template.
Get Label Template InfoTool to retrieve all labels from a specific label template.
Get License Template InfoTool to retrieve information about a specific license template.
Get Node InfoTool to retrieve the nodeinfo of the Gitea application.
Get Signing KeyTool to retrieve the default GPG signing key used by Gitea to sign commits.
Get VersionTool to retrieve the version of the Gitea application.
List Gitignore TemplatesTool to retrieve all available gitignore templates.
List Label TemplatesTool to retrieve all available label templates.
List License TemplatesTool to retrieve all available license templates.
Get All OrganizationsTool to retrieve a paginated list of all organizations in the Gitea instance.
List Organization Actions SecretsTool to list all action secrets for an organization.
Render MarkdownTool to render a markdown document as HTML with configurable rendering modes and context.
Render Markdown RawTool to render raw markdown text as HTML.
Render MarkupTool to render a markup document as HTML with support for multiple markup formats.

Available tools and triggers

After setup, the supported Gitea tools and triggers listed on this page are available to Cowork through Composio Connect.

You can now ask Cowork to handle Gitea workflows in natural language, from quick summaries and drafting tasks to more complex multi-step work across connected apps.

How to build Gitea MCP Agent with another framework

FAQ

What are the differences in Tool Router MCP and Gitea MCP?

With a standalone Gitea MCP server, the agents and LLMs can only access a fixed set of Gitea tools tied to that server. However, with the Composio Tool Router, agents can dynamically load tools from Gitea and many other apps based on the task at hand, all through a single MCP endpoint.

Can I use Tool Router MCP with Claude Cowork?

Yes, you can. Claude Cowork fully supports MCP integration. You get structured tool calling, message history handling, and model orchestration while Tool Router takes care of discovering and serving the right Gitea tools.

Can I manage the permissions and scopes for Gitea while using Tool Router?

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Gitea scopes and actions are allowed when connecting your account to Composio. You can also bring your own OAuth credentials or API configuration so you keep full control over what the agent can do.

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?

All sensitive data such as tokens, keys, and configuration is fully encrypted at rest and in transit. Composio is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and follows strict security practices so your Gitea data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

Used by agents from

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HubSpot
Agent.ai
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Context
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Agent.ai
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Never worry about agent reliability

We handle tool reliability, observability, and security so you never have to second-guess an agent action.