redhat-ai-tools/jira-mcp

A containerized Python MCP server for Cursor to provide access to Jira.

Important

This project is experimental and was initially created as a learning exercise. Be aware there are more capable and mature Jira MCP solutions available, such as sooperset/mcp-atlassian, and Atlassian's own MCP Server.

See also redhat-ai-tools/jira-mcp-snowflake which provides another way to access Red Hat Jira data.

Prerequisites

• podman - Install with sudo dnf install podman (Fedora/RHEL) or brew install podman (macOS)
• make - Usually pre-installed on most systems

Quick Start

1. Get the code

git clone git@github.com:redhat-ai-tools/jira-mcp.git
cd jira-mcp

2. Build the image & configure Cursor
   This also creates a ~/.rh-jira-mcp.env file like this.

make setup

3. Prepare a Jira token
   • Go to Red Hat Jira Personal Access Tokens and create a token
   • Edit the .rh-jira-mcp.env file in your home directory and paste in the token

To confirm it's working, run Cursor, go to Settings and click on "Tools & Integrations". Under MCP Tools you should see "jiraMcp" with 20 tools enabled.

Available Tools

This MCP server provides the following tools:

Issue Search

• get_jira - Get details for a specific Jira issue by key.
• search_issues - Search issues using JQL

Project Management

• list_projects - List all projects
• get_project - Get project details by key
• get_project_components - Get components for a project
• get_project_versions - Get versions for a project
• get_project_roles - Get roles for a project
• get_project_permission_scheme - Get permission scheme for a project
• get_project_issue_types - Get issue types for a project

Board & Sprint Management

• list_boards - List all boards
• get_board - Get board details by ID
• list_sprints - List sprints for a board
• get_sprint - Get sprint details by ID
• get_issues_for_board - Get issues for a board
• get_issues_for_sprint - Get issues for a sprint

User Management

• search_users - Search users by query
• get_user - Get user details by account ID
• get_current_user - Get current user info
• get_assignable_users_for_project - Get assignable users for a project
• get_assignable_users_for_issue - Get assignable users for an issue

Development Commands

• make build - Build the image
• make run - Run the container
• make clean - Clean up the built image
• make cursor-config - Modify ~/.cursor/mcp.json to install this MCP Server
• make setup - Builds the image, configures Cursor, and creates ~/.rh-jira-mcp.env if it doesn't exist

Troubleshooting

Server Not Starting

• Confirm that make run works
• Check that the JIRA_API_TOKEN is correct
• Verify the image was built successfully with podman images jira-mcp
• Go to the "Output" tab in Cursor's bottom pane, choose "MCP Logs" from the drop-down select and examine the logs there

Connection Issues

• Restart Cursor after configuration changes
• Check Cursor's developer console for error messages
• Verify the Jira URL is accessible from your network

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.