Orbit

Orbit exposes GitLab.com’s experimental Knowledge Graph API through five read-only MCP tools. It is available only when the server connects to https://gitlab.com and the Enterprise/Premium catalog is enabled with GITLAB_ENTERPRISE=true or --enterprise.

Technical reference

For the complete generated tool reference, see docs/tools/orbit.md in the repository.

Availability

Requirement	Value
GitLab host	https://gitlab.com
Catalog	Enterprise/Premium
Meta-tool mode	gitlab_orbit with five actions
Individual mode	Five gitlab_orbit_* tools
Write behavior	Read-only

Self-managed GitLab instances do not register Orbit tools, even when the Enterprise/Premium catalog is enabled.

Actions

Action	Individual tool	Purpose
status	gitlab_orbit_status	Check Orbit service health and component status
schema	gitlab_orbit_schema	Inspect the graph ontology and optional expanded node definitions
tools	gitlab_orbit_tools	Discover the live Orbit query manifest
query	gitlab_orbit_query	Execute a read-only Knowledge Graph query object
graph_status	gitlab_orbit_graph_status	Inspect indexing status for a namespace, project, or full path

Typical flow

1. Call gitlab_orbit with action: "status" to confirm the service is available.
2. Call action: "schema" to inspect graph domains, nodes, and relationships.
3. Call action: "tools" before action: "query" to obtain the live query schema served by GitLab.com.
4. Pass a JSON query object to action: "query" with response_format set to raw or llm.

{
  "tool": "gitlab_orbit",
  "arguments": {
    "action": "graph_status",
    "params": {
      "project_id": 278964,
      "response_format": "llm"
    }
  }
}

Schema discovery

In meta-tool mode, action parameter schemas are available through MCP resources:

Resource	Purpose
gitlab://schema/meta/gitlab_orbit/status	Parameters for service health checks
gitlab://schema/meta/gitlab_orbit/schema	Parameters for ontology inspection
gitlab://schema/meta/gitlab_orbit/tools	Parameters for query manifest discovery
gitlab://schema/meta/gitlab_orbit/query	Parameters for Knowledge Graph queries
gitlab://schema/meta/gitlab_orbit/graph_status	Parameters for indexing status checks

These resources remain available regardless of META_PARAM_SCHEMA mode.