How to connect Jira MCP and Claude Code for effortless project management

As a developer, I just get mad when I have to manage my projects manually. When I first started juggling multiple projects, things were okay at first, but as the workload grew, so did the time I spent updating tickets, searching for status reports, and clarifying project requirements. I often found myself wishing for a smarter way to bridge the gap between project management and the development process, where I could simply ask an AI agent to handle the tedious tasks for me.

And if you're working in a team, you may face the same problem.

So… what if we could just ask some AI Agent to handle project management while we focus on the things that actually matter?

In this article, I'll show you how to connect Jira MCP and Claude Code for effortless project management, right from your terminal, with zero friction.

What is MCP?

Think of MCP as a bridge that connects all your SaaS tools to your AI agent. It acts like an adapter, enabling your AI agent (Client) to understand and interact with your tools.

According to Anthropic (the team behind Claude and MCP),

“MCP is an open protocol that standardizes how applications provide context to LLMs. Think of MCP like a USB-C port for AI applications. Just as USB-C provides a standardized way to connect your devices to various peripherals and accessories, MCP provides a standardized way to connect AI models to different data sources and tools.”

credits: modelcontextprotocol.io

And What’s Jira MCP?

Now, Jira MCP is the MCP Server for Atlassian's project management tool Jira. It lets your AI agent (the client) connect to Jira and interact with your project workflows, including bug tracking, issue tracking, sprint planning, and more. The prompt you pass to your AI agent is converted into a JSON object, which is then sent to the Jira MCP server. The server then interacts with the Jira API to perform the action using the tools for each action.

What Can You Do with Jira MCP?

A lot! If you’re working in an Agile team, Jira MCP can simplify many of your daily workflows:

• Building a new issue (e.g., bug, task, story)? Use the JIRA_CREATE_ISSUE tool to create a new ticket.

• Want to comment on an issue? Use JIRA_ADD_COMMENT to drop a note.

• Need to create tasks in bulk? The JIRA_BULK_CREATE_ISSUE tool has you covered.

• Assign issues, fetch projects, list sprints, and add attachments? You can do it all by just passing simple prompts to your AI agent and watching it work.

Explore the full list of Jira MCP tools here

What is Covered?

• How to connect Composio’s Jira MCP and Claude Code in two different ways

• How to configure Claude Code to manage Jira tickets from your terminal

• How to prompt Claude to view, create, update, and delete Jira tasks

Let's Start With the Setup

We’ll be using the following tools:

1. Composio's Jira MCP

2. Claude Code

3. Jira

You can set up Jira MCP in two ways:

Method 1: Quick MCP Setup (My Go-To)

Head over to Composio Jira MCP and hit the Claude tab. You'll see a Generate button under Installation. Click it, and run the generated command in your terminal.

The command will look something like this:

npx @composio/mcp@latest setup "<https://mcp.composio.dev/partner/composio/jira/mcp?customerId=[your-customer-id]>" "jira-lig0gc-38" --client

You can follow the same instructions to set up the MCP for your Jira instance on Cursor, Windsurf, or even via a plain HTTP endpoint.

After running the command, the terminal will prompt you with a success message:

By default, the config gets saved to:

• C:\\Users\\[your-username]\\AppData\\Roaming\\Claude\\claude_desktop_config.json (on Windows)

• ~/.config/claude/claude_desktop_config.json (on Mac/Linux)

Note: Before moving on, make sure you have the MCP config ready for the project you want to use it with. You can either use the global config or copy it into a local .mcp.json for individual projects. For this article, we’ll focus on a single project, so we’re going with a local config.

To copy the config file locally, run:

Windows:

cp

Mac/Linux:

cp

Managing Jira Tickets with Claude Code

Now that our config is ready, we can start managing Jira tickets from the Claude Code CLI.

I’ve already set up a project on Jira, here’s what it looks like with a few initial work items:

Navigate to your project directory (where you placed .mcp.json) and run Claude Code.

Prompt:

I need you to list all the tasks I have on my board 67 of Jira setup.

Done! You’ll get the list of tasks instantly. You can even ask Claude to:

• Create a new task

• Update an existing one

• Delete tasks

• ...and more

A Video Walkthrough for the whole flow

Conclusion

Since I started using the MCP, I’ve been able to manage my projects way more efficiently, and finally spend more time on what actually matters: building stuff.

If you're tired of the manual grind, too, try this setup. It might just save your sanity.

Go to Composio MCP and BUILD NOWWWW!