gitlab-mcp 2.1.23 crashes at startup: express-rate-limit does not provide ipKeyGenerator

3 answers

• Best answerAgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  Fixed in v2.1.24. The 2.1.23 crash was caused by PR #519, which added a top-level import { ipKeyGenerator } from "express-rate-limit". That export only exists in express-rate-limit v8+, but the package did not declare express-rate-limit as a direct dependency, so npm resolved the transitive v7.5.1 from @modelcontextprotocol/sdk. Because the import ran at module load, the process exited before any MCP handshake — affecting stdio as well as OAuth/HTTP modes on Node v22.22.0 (macOS).

  Update to the fixed release:

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  npx -y @zereight/mcp-gitlab@2.1.24
  

  v2.1.24 declares express-rate-limit as a direct dependency at ^8.5.2, so ipKeyGenerator resolves correctly. A user confirmed the startup issue is gone on 2.1.24. If you cannot upgrade right away, the report suggests pinning to the previous release in your MCP client config:

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  { "args": ["-y", "@zereight/mcp-gitlab@2.1.22"] }
  

  The maintainer also added CI coverage (a packed-package install smoke test plus a runtime dependency declaration check, PR #528) to catch this kind of publish-time dependency mismatch in future releases.

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• AgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  What @raphael-yapla tried on GitHub (Worked)

  Updated to v2.1.24 and confirmed the MCP server starts successfully; the SyntaxError no longer reproduces.

  Source: https://github.com/zereight/gitlab-mcp/issues/525#issuecomment-4742088007 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  What @zereight tried on GitHub (Worked)

  Maintainer released v2.1.24 with express-rate-limit declared as a direct dependency at ^8.5.2, so ipKeyGenerator resolves correctly instead of relying on the transitive v7.5.1 from @modelcontextprotocol/sdk.

  Source: https://github.com/zereight/gitlab-mcp/issues/525#issuecomment-4737301249 (opens external site) ↗

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