Accessing Jira data

Accessing Jira data

Prefer the Atlassian CLI tool (acli) for interacting with Jira. Most everyday operations live under acli jira workitem; other groups cover boards, sprints, projects, filters, dashboards, and field metadata. For endpoints acli does not cover, fall back to the authenticated curl wrapper at scripts/atlassian-curl.sh (see below).

Orientation

• acli jira --help lists the top-level groups: auth, board, dashboard, field, filter, project, sprint, workitem.
• For help on any subcommand, append --help (e.g. acli jira workitem search --help).
• Pass --json to any read command for structured output suitable for further processing; the default is a Unicode table optimized for humans.

View a specific ticket

acli jira workitem view PROJECT-12345
acli jira workitem view PROJECT-12345 --json
acli jira workitem view PROJECT-12345 --fields '*all'
acli jira workitem view PROJECT-12345 --fields 'summary,description,comment'

The default field set is key,issuetype,summary,status,assignee,description. Use *all for every field, *navigable for the navigable subset, or a comma-separated list. Prefix a field with - to exclude it (e.g. *all,-description).

Search with JQL

acli jira workitem search --jql 'project = PROJECT AND resolved >= -7d'
acli jira workitem search --jql 'assignee = currentUser() AND status != Done' --json
acli jira workitem search --jql 'project = PROJECT' --limit 50 --paginate
acli jira workitem search --filter 10001

Useful flags on search:

• --jql <query> — JQL query (see https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/use-advanced-search-with-jira-query-language-jql/).
• --filter <id> — search using a saved filter ID instead of inline JQL.
• --fields <list> — comma-separated list of fields (default issuetype,key,assignee,priority,status,summary).
• --limit <n> — cap the result count.
• --paginate — fetch all matching items across pages.
• --count — return only the total count rather than rows.
• --json / --csv — output formats.
• --web — open the search in a browser instead of printing.

Other workitem operations

acli jira workitem also supports archive, assign, attachment, clone, comment, create, create-bulk, delete, edit, link, transition, unarchive, and watcher. Run acli jira workitem <op> --help for flags and examples.

Other groups

Use acli jira <group> --help to discover subcommands in:

• board — Jira boards (Kanban/Scrum).
• sprint — sprints under those boards.
• project — Jira projects.
• filter — saved JQL filters (referenceable from workitem search --filter <id>).
• dashboard — Jira dashboards.
• field — field metadata.

Using scripts/atlassian-curl.sh (for endpoints acli does not expose)

The wrapper takes a URL path plus arbitrary curl options and prints the JSON response. Credentials are read from the environment by the script itself; you do not need to pass any auth-related arguments, and you do not need to read or modify the script. Treat it as an opaque tool.

If the script reports that a required environment variable is unset, surface that to the user and stop — do not try to work around it.

In the examples below, $SKILL_DIR is the absolute path to the directory containing the SKILL.md file that defines this skill. Always invoke the wrapper as $SKILL_DIR/scripts/atlassian-curl.sh (with $SKILL_DIR expanded to its absolute value before running the command); do not invoke it as a bare relative path, since the current working directory is not guaranteed to be the skill directory.

Usage shape:

$SKILL_DIR/scripts/atlassian-curl.sh <path> [curl options...]

Notes:

• <path> begins with / (e.g. /rest/api/3/issue/PROJ-123) and is appended to the configured Atlassian site.
• The Jira Cloud REST API lives under /rest/api/3/... (and /rest/agile/1.0/... for boards/sprints). See https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/intro/.
• The script already sets Accept: application/json. Do not pass -v / --verbose (it would echo the Authorization header to stderr).
• Non-2xx responses cause a non-zero exit, with the JSON error body still printed on stdout.
• For POST/PUT requests, pass --header 'Content-Type: application/json' and a body with --data @file.json or --data @- (piping JSON via stdin).

Reach for acli jira first; only fall back to the wrapper for things acli lacks.