One gateway, three ways in

The web UI, the MCP server and requel-cli all go through the same commands and queries. Whatever signs in acts as one Requel user: that user’s stakeholder permissions decide what it may read and change, and every change is recorded in the audit log under their name. Give an AI client or a script its own user with only the permissions it needs.

Personal access tokens

Scripts, CI jobs and AI clients that can’t open a browser use a personal access token. An administrator first gives the user the manageApiTokens permission (users). Then, in Menu → Settings:

1. New token, give it a name (what will use it) and an expiry.
2. Copy the token (it starts reqpat_). It is shown only once.
3. Send it as Authorization: Bearer reqpat_….

The list shows when each token was last used. Revoke stops one working at once.

The REST API

• Reads are GET /api/…, for example GET /api/projects or GET /api/projects/{name}/open-issues.
• Changes are commands: POST /api/commands/{type} with a JSON body, for example EditGoal.
• Log in with a token as above, or POST /api/auth/login with a username and password for a short-lived token.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $REQUEL_TOKEN" http://localhost:8080/api/projects

AI clients over MCP

Requel is an MCP server at /api/mcp (Streamable HTTP). Claude, Codex, VS Code and other MCP clients can read a project, search it, list open issues and make changes as tools. Add it to your client by URL, for example http://localhost:8080/api/mcp; the client then signs in one of two ways:

• OAuth, for interactive clients: a browser opens on Requel’s login and consent page, and the client keeps the token. Nothing to copy.
• A personal access token in the client’s Authorization header, for headless use.

Client-by-client steps are in Connecting an MCP client and VS Code. To run the MCP server read-only, start Requel with --requel.gateway.write.enabled=false.

requel-cli

A command-line client for the same queries and commands. Download requel-cli-2.0.1.jar from the 2.0.1 release; it needs Java 17 or later.

alias requel='java -jar ~/Downloads/requel-cli-2.0.1.jar'
requel --version

Sign in once per server; the CLI remembers it:

export REQUEL_URL=http://localhost:8080
requel login --token reqpat_...      # or: requel login --oauth
requel projects
requel open-issues Requel
requel search Requel "project"
requel commands                       # the commands you can run
requel run EditGoal --input '{"projectName":"Requel","name":"A new goal"}'

requel --help lists every subcommand; --output switches between text and JSON.

Project files

For moving whole projects, use export and import. The XML follows the published project schema, so other tools can read and write it.