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Set up Jira MCP in Cursor to manage Jira tickets directly from your IDE using natural language.

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Prerequisites

  • Cursor IDE installed
  • Jira MCP installed (see Quickstart)
  • jira-cli configured and authenticated

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Configuration

1

Open MCP settings

In Cursor, go to Settings > MCP or open the command palette and search for “MCP”.
2

Add Jira MCP server

Add the following configuration to your MCP servers:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jira": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/jira-mcp",
      "env": {
        "JIRA_API_TOKEN": "your-api-token",
        "JIRA_AUTH_TYPE": "basic"
      }
    }
  }
}
Replace /usr/local/bin/jira-mcp with the actual path to your jira-mcp binary.
3

Restart Cursor

Restart Cursor or reload the window to apply the changes.

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Usage examples

Once configured, you can interact with Jira using natural language in Cursor:
  • “Show me my assigned tickets”
  • “Create a bug ticket for the login page issue”
  • “Move PROJ-123 to In Progress”
  • “Add a comment to PROJ-456 explaining the fix”
  • “What tickets are in the current sprint?”

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Troubleshooting

  1. Verify the path to your jira-mcp binary is correct.
  2. Make sure jira-cli is properly configured by running jira issue list in your terminal.
  3. Check Cursor’s MCP logs for error messages.
Ensure your Jira credentials are set in the MCP configuration’s env field:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jira": {
      "command": "/usr/local/bin/jira-mcp",
      "env": {
        "JIRA_API_TOKEN": "your-api-token",
        "JIRA_AUTH_TYPE": "basic"
      }
    }
  }
}
GUI applications like Cursor do not inherit shell environment variables from .bashrc or .zshrc. Using the env field in the MCP configuration is the recommended approach.