colab-mcp
Bridges a local agent to a Google Colab session in the browser, enabling code execution and interaction with Colab notebooks.
Click on "Deploy Server".
Wait a few minutes for the server to deploy. Once ready, it will show a "Started" state.
In the chat, type
@followed by the MCP server name and your instructions, e.g., "@colab-mcprun a Python script in my Colab session"
That's it! The server will respond to your query, and you can continue using it as needed.
Here is a step-by-step guide with screenshots.
Colab-mcp
An MCP server for bridging your local agent to a Colab session in the browser.
Supported Clients
This MCP server requires client support for notifications/tools/list_changed and for the client to be running locally on your device.
Popular clients that fit these criteria include:
Gemini CLI
Claude Code
Windsurf
Setup
Install
uv(pip install uv)Configure for usage (eg for mcp.json style services):
...
"mcpServers": {
"colab-mcp": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["git+https://github.com/googlecolab/colab-mcp"],
"timeout": 30000
}
}
...(If you have a non-standard default package index (Googlers), you may also need to add --index https://pypi.org/simple)
Issues & Discussions
We are using GitHub discussions as the place for issue discussion and feature requests. As discussions mature into action items, we will add those items as issues. This helps us ensure that issues in the issue tracker are well-understood, deduplicated, and actionable. For these reasons, please do NOT open issues directly.
Contributing
We unfortunately don't have the bandwidth to support review of external contributions, and we don't want user PRs to languish, so we aren't accepting any external contributions right now.
If you have a great idea or pain point, we would love to hear about it on our discussions page - the preferred place for issue discussion and feature requests.
Internal - For Colab Developers
Prerequisites
uvis required (pip install uv)Configure git hooks to run repo presubmits
git config core.hooksPath .githooksGemini CLI setup
...
"mcpServers": {
"colab-mcp": {
"command": "uv",
"args": ["run", "colab-mcp"],
"cwd": "/path/to/github/colab-mcp",
"timeout": 30000
}
}
...Available Tools
1 toolopen_colab_browser_connectionA
Opens a connection to a Google Colab browser session and unlocks notebook editing tools. Returns a boolean representing whether the connection attempt succeeded
Inputs: no named parameters. Returns: result
Tool Schema Changelog
Recent tool additions, removals, and schema changes observed during successful MCP inspections.
TDQS
Scored across 1 tool
Only one tool exists, so there is no possibility of confusion between tools. The purpose is clearly stated as opening a Colab browser connection.
The single tool name follows a clear snake_case pattern with a verb and object (open_colab_browser_connection). There is no inconsistency since only one name exists.
A single tool is too few for a Colab integration server. The description references 'unlocking notebook editing tools' but none are actually provided, making the tool count inappropriate for the apparent scope.
The server only offers a connection opener, with no actual editing or interaction tools. The functionality implied by 'unlocking notebook editing tools' is completely absent, leaving the surface severely incomplete.
Maintenance
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