A2atlassian

🏢 a2atlassian

Agent-to-Atlassian

Give AI agents access to Jira and Confluence. Save credentials once, work from anywhere.

Jira + Confluence · read-only by default · pre-configured connections · compact TSV output

Quick Start · MCP Tools · Security · Comparison · Setup

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Agent: "What's the status of PROJ-42? Add a comment with the progress update."

↓ a2atlassian → get issue, add comment, transition to In Progress ↓ Agent: "Done — PROJ-42 updated and moved to In Progress."

Why a2atlassian?

Existing Atlassian MCP servers (Rovo, sooperset) require Docker, .env files, and mcp-remote bridges. They dump 72 tools into agent context and have known quirks that silently fail. a2atlassian fixes all of that:

• No Docker — pip install a2atlassian and you're done
• Pre-configured connections — define projects in .mcp.json with --register, agent works immediately
• Read-only by default — write access is opt-in per connection
• Connection scoping — --scope limits which projects an agent can see
• Compact output — TSV for lists (30-60% fewer tokens), JSON for single entities
• Dynamic tool loading — MCP clients that support deferred tools (e.g., Claude Code) load tools on demand, keeping context lean
• Error enrichment — bad field names get suggestions, JQL typos get corrections, quirks get auto-fixed
• Secrets stay in env — ${ATLASSIAN_TOKEN} in configs, expanded only at runtime

Scope today: full Jira surface (issues, comments, sprints, boards, worklogs, links, versions, fields, watchers, projects) and Confluence core (pages CRUD, search, metadata-only writes).

Quick Start

# Recommended — installs globally as a CLI tool

uv tool install a2atlassian

Or with pip

pip install a2atlassian

As an MCP Server (recommended)

Claude Code (with pre-configured connection):

claude mcp add -s user a2atlassian -- uvx --from a2atlassian a2atlassian-mcp \

--register myproject https://mysite.atlassian.net user@company.com '${ATLASSIAN_TOKEN}'

Claude Code (minimal — agent calls login on demand):

claude mcp add -s user a2atlassian -- uvx --from a2atlassian a2atlassian-mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor / any MCP client (.mcp.json):

{

"mcpServers": { "a2atlassian": { "command": "uvx", "args": [ "--from", "a2atlassian", "a2atlassian-mcp", "--register", "myproject", "https://mysite.atlassian.net", "user@company.com", "${ATLASSIAN_TOKEN}" ], "env": { "ATLASSIAN_TOKEN": "your-api-token-here" } } } }

Multiple projects:

{

"args": [ "--from", "a2atlassian", "a2atlassian-mcp", "--register", "myproject", "https://mysite.atlassian.net", "user@a.com", "${TOKEN_A}", "--register", "personal", "https://personal.atlassian.net", "user@b.com", "${TOKEN_B}" ] }

Scoped connections (limit agent to specific saved projects):

{

"args": ["--from", "a2atlassian", "a2atlassian-mcp", "--scope", "myproject"] }

--register creates ephemeral in-memory connections (process lifetime, no files written). --scope filters which saved connections are visible. Both limit blast radius.

As a CLI

# Save a connection (validates by calling /myself)

a2atlassian login -c myproject \ --url https://mysite.atlassian.net \ --email user@company.com \ --token "$ATLASSIAN_TOKEN"

Same, pulling the token from 1Password via op

a2atlassian login -c myproject \ --url https://mysite.atlassian.net \ --email user@company.com \ --token "op://Personal/Atlassian/token"

Enable writes

a2atlassian login -c myproject \ --url https://mysite.atlassian.net \ --email user@company.com \ --token "$ATLASSIAN_TOKEN" \ --no-read-only

List / remove connections

a2atlassian connections a2atlassian logout -c myproject

Tokens accept three forms: literal value, ${ENV_VAR} reference, or op://vault/item/field (resolved via the 1Password CLI at runtime).

MCP Tools

Connection Management

Jira — Read

Jira — Write (requires read-write connection)

Confluence — Read

Confluence — Write (requires read-write connection)

Output Formats

All tools accept a format parameter:

List responses use a compact TSV-style format (header row + tab-separated values) inspired by TOON. This is the same approach a2db uses — column names appear once, then just values. For a 50-issue search result, this typically saves 40-60% of tokens compared to JSON.

TSV example (search results):

# search (23 results, 50ms, truncated: False)

key summary assignee status PROJ-142 Fix auth timeout Alice Smith In Progress PROJ-141 Add search filters Bob Jones To Do

JSON example (single issue):

{

"data": {"key": "PROJ-142", "fields": {"summary": "Fix auth timeout", ...}}, "count": 1, "truncated": false, "time_ms": 85 }

Error Enrichment

When something fails, a2atlassian tells the agent what to do:

Field 'asignee' does not exist

Did you mean: assignee?

Connection 'myproject' is read-only. Run: a2atlassian login -p myproject --read-only false

Quirks handled automatically:

• Assignee requires display name (not 712020: account IDs) — auto-detected with hint
• Parent field must be plain string — {"key": "PROJ-14"} normalized to "PROJ-14" silently
• Issue type conversion not supported via API — clear Jira UI instructions provided

Security

Read-Only by Default

Every connection starts read-only. Write tools check the connection flag before executing:

Connection 'myproject' is read-only.

Re-run 'a2atlassian login -p myproject --read-only false' to enable writes.

The human operator controls write access — not the agent.

Credential Storage

Connections saved via login go to ~/.config/a2atlassian/connections/ as TOML files:

• File permissions: 0600 (owner read/write only)
• `${ATLASSIAN_TOKEN}` syntax — env var references stored literally, expanded at runtime
• No secrets in output — list_connections shows project name, URL, and mode — never tokens
• Ephemeral mode — --register keeps credentials in memory only, never written to disk

Connection Scoping

Use --scope to limit which saved connections a specific MCP instance can access:

# Project config — only myproject visible, even if other connections are saved

uvx --from a2atlassian a2atlassian-mcp --scope myproject

Project-level MCP configs (.claude/mcp.json) override global configs — each repo sees only its own connections.

Rate Limiting

Built-in retry with exponential backoff for Atlassian's rate limits (429) and transient server errors (500). Two retries at 1s and 3s intervals before surfacing the error.

Comparison