Jira MCP

Jira MCP for controlling Jira through Jira Command Line.

Getting started

Jira MCP Server

Installation

Install jira-cli

The MCP server uses the jira-cli to execute Jira commands.

Follow the installation instructions for your operating system: https://github.com/ankitpokhrel/jira-cli?tab=readme-ov-file#installation

Get Jira API Token

Depending on your implementation of Jira (Cloud or Self-Hosted), you will need to use a different authentication type.

Get your API token from: https://id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/security/api-tokens

You will need to set the following environment variables:

• JIRA_API_TOKEN - Your Jira API token

• JIRA_AUTH_TYPE - Authentication type (bearer for token, basic for Jira account API token, password for Jira account password)

Recommended: Pass these variables in your MCP client configuration using the env field (shown in the configuration examples below). This is more reliable than shell environment variables because GUI applications like Cursor and Windsurf do not inherit variables from .bashrc or .zshrc.

Other ways to add credentials to your environment: https://github.com/ankitpokhrel/jira-cli/discussions/356

Start Jira CLI

This should initialize the Jira CLI by asking for your Jira URL and credentials.

Test Jira CLI

This should return a list of issues in Jira.

MCP Server: Option 1: Download binaries (Recommended)

Download the latest release for your operating system from the Releases page.

Linux

Add to your LLM client configuration:

NOTE: Make sure to replace /usr/local/bin/jira-mcp with the path to the binary on your machine if you moved it to a different location.

macOS

Note: macOS may block the binary on first run. If you see a security warning, go to System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Allow Anyway, or run:

Add to your LLM client configuration:

NOTE: Make sure to replace /usr/local/bin/jira-mcp with the path to the binary on your machine if you moved it to a different location.

Windows

1. Download jira-mcp-windows.exe from the Releases page.

2. Move the executable to a convenient location (e.g., C:\Program Files\jira-mcp\).

Add to your LLM client configuration:

NOTE: Make sure to replace C:\\Program Files\\jira-mcp\\jira-mcp-windows.exe with the path to the binary on your machine if you moved it to a different location.

MCP Server: Option 2: Development setup with uv

Get repo:

Add MCP server to your choice of LLM client:

NOTE: You will need to look up for your specific client on how to add MCPs.

Usually the JSON file for the LLM client will look like this:

This will tell your LLM client application that there's a tool that can be called by calling uv --directory /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/REPO run python -m src.main.

Install UV: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/getting-started/installation/

MCP Server: Option 3: Install globally with pipx

How it works

1. You enter some questions or prompt to a LLM Client such as the Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, or ChatGPT.

2. The client sends your question to the LLM model (Sonnet, Grok, ChatGPT)

3. LLM analyzes the available tools and decides which one(s) to use

   • The LLM you're using will have a context of the tools and what each tool is meant for in human language.

   • Alternatively without MCPs, you could include in the prompt the endpoints and a description on each endpoint for the LLM to "call on". Then you could copy and paste the text commands into the terminal on your machine.

   • MCPs provide a more deterministic and standardized method on LLM-to-server interactions.

4. The client executes the chosen tool(s) through the MCP server.

   • The MCP server is either running local on your machine or an endpoint hosting the MCP server remotely.

5. The results are sent back to LLM.

6. LLM formulates a natural language response and one or both of the following happen:

   • The response is displayed to you with data from the MCP server

   • Some action is performed using the MCP server

Development

Logging

Do not use print statements for logging. Use the logging module instead. Writing to stdout will corrupt the JSON-RPC messages and break your server.

Pre-commit

This project uses pre-commit to run ruff linting and formatting checks, and pytest tests before each commit.

To set up pre-commit hooks:

Once installed, ruff and pytest will automatically run when you commit. To run checks manually on all files:

Docstrings / Tool decorator parameters

MCP.tools decorator parameters are especially important as this is the human readable text that the LLM has context of. This will be treated as part of the prompt when fed to the LLM and this will decide when to use each tool.

Architecture

MCP follows a client-server architecture where an MCP host (an AI application like Cursor or ChatGPT desktop) establishes connections to one or more MCP servers. The MCP host accomplishes this by creating one MCP client for each MCP server. Each MCP client maintains a dedicated connection with its corresponding MCP server.

https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/learn/architecture

Pitfalls / Troubleshooting

Edit the jira-cli config file

On MacOS:

404 error when using jira init

If you get a 404 error when using jira init, you may need to edit the jira-cli config file to point to the correct Jira instance. There are only 3 possible values for the auth type so try each one. basic, password, or bearer.