colab-mcp
OfficialClick 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-mcp Run a Python cell in Colab that prints 'Hello World'"
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.
Loading tool schema changelog…
TDQS
Scored across 1 tool
Only one tool exists, so there is no risk of confusion or overlap with other tools.
The single tool name follows a clear verb_noun pattern ('open_colab_browser_connection'), so consistency is not an issue.
A single tool is too few for a server intended to enable Colab notebook editing; the tool merely opens a connection, suggesting many necessary actions are missing.
The tool set is severely incomplete: it only provides a connection opener and lacks any tools for actual notebook editing, despite claiming to unlock such tools.
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