Jira MCP server for AI agents

This MCP server integrates Jira with AI assistants, allowing you to interact with Jira directly through your AI tools. You can create tickets, fetch project information, and update dashboards without leaving your editing environment.

Installation

Prerequisites

Before installing, you need to generate authentication tokens for Jira:

For Jira Cloud

Navigate to https://id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/security/api-tokens
Click Create API token and give it a name
Copy the generated token for later use

Setting Up the Server

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/TusharShahi/mcp-jira.git

Install uv (Universal Virtualenv):

# Install uv using your package manager
# Example for pip:
pip install uv

Configuration

IDE Integration

To integrate the MCP Jira server with your IDE, you'll need to configure it properly.

For Cursor, add the following to your configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jira": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": [
        "--directory",
        "/Users/PATH/TO/jira/server",
        "run",
        "jira.py"
      ],
      "env": {
        "JIRA_API_TOKEN": "XXXX",
        "JIRA_BASE_URL": "XXXX",
        "JIRA_USER_EMAIL": "XXXX",
        "JIRA_USER_ID": "XXXX" 
      }
    }
  }
}

Make sure to replace:

/Users/PATH/TO/jira/server with the actual path to the cloned repository
All XXXX values with your actual Jira credentials:
- JIRA_API_TOKEN: The token you generated in the prerequisites step
- JIRA_BASE_URL: Your Jira instance URL (e.g., https://yourcompany.atlassian.net)
- JIRA_USER_EMAIL: Email address associated with your Jira account
- JIRA_USER_ID: Your Jira user ID

Usage

Once configured, you can use your AI assistant to interact with Jira through natural language commands.

Common Tasks

You can ask your AI assistant to:

Create Jira Tickets: Create new tickets directly from your cursor position

Please create a Jira ticket titled "Fix login bug" in the PROJ project with high priority

Get Project Information: Fetch details about your Jira projects
```
Can you show me the current epics in the PROJ project?
```
Update Dashboards: Make changes to your Jira dashboards without switching context
```
Update the "Development Overview" dashboard with today's sprint metrics
```

The AI assistant will communicate with the MCP Jira server, which then performs the requested operations in your Jira instance.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "jira" '{"command":"uv","args":["--directory","/Users/PATH/TO/jira/server","run","jira.py"],"env":{"JIRA_API_TOKEN":"XXXX","JIRA_BASE_URL":"XXXX","JIRA_USER_EMAIL":"XXXX","JIRA_USER_ID":"XXXX"}}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "jira": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "/Users/PATH/TO/jira/server",
                "run",
                "jira.py"
            ],
            "env": {
                "JIRA_API_TOKEN": "XXXX",
                "JIRA_BASE_URL": "XXXX",
                "JIRA_USER_EMAIL": "XXXX",
                "JIRA_USER_ID": "XXXX"
            }
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "jira": {
            "command": "uv",
            "args": [
                "--directory",
                "/Users/PATH/TO/jira/server",
                "run",
                "jira.py"
            ],
            "env": {
                "JIRA_API_TOKEN": "XXXX",
                "JIRA_BASE_URL": "XXXX",
                "JIRA_USER_EMAIL": "XXXX",
                "JIRA_USER_ID": "XXXX"
            }
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect