jayrah

Jayrah is a combined CLI, TUI, and web UI for interacting with Jira, plus an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that enables AI tools (like VS Code Copilot) to talk to Jira through standard MCP commands. With Jayrah, you can browse and manage Jira issues from a terminal, render a rich terminal UI, and expose Jira operations to external tools via the MCP interface. The MCP mode (jayrah mcp) starts a stdio-based server that exposes actions such as browsing issues, creating or viewing issues, adding comments, changing statuses, listing boards, and more, making it convenient to integrate Jira work into editor-assisted AI workflows. The Web UI provides a quick, browser-based way to browse and manage issues, while the CLI and TUI cover interactive workflows directly in your terminal.

Prerequisites:

• A working development environment with either Node.js tooling (for uv) or the uvx runtime as described below.
• JavaScript/TypeScript tooling is not strictly required unless you plan to modify the source.

Option A: Install via uvx (recommended when uvx is available)

1. Install uvx if you don’t have it:
   • curl -LsSf uvx.sh/jayrah/install.sh | sh
2. Install Jayrah from source or via uvx as described by the project (no extra build steps required for the MCP server):
   • git clone https://github.com/chmouel/jayrah.git
   • cd jayrah
   • uv run jayrah

Option B: Install via curl script (uvx-based installation commonly used in docs)

1. Follow the project’s install command:
   • curl -LsSf uvx.sh/jayrah/install.sh | sh
2. Run the MCP mode after installation:
   • jayrah mcp

Starting the MCP server:

• Once installed, start the MCP server with: jayrah mcp
• This runs in stdio mode by default for use with editors like VS Code Copilot.

Other useful commands:

• jayrah web # Start the web UI on http://localhost:8000 (local use only)
• jayrah browse # Open the issue browser in the terminal (TUI)

Tips and caveats:

• The MCP server exposes Jira operations to AI tools, so ensure your Jira credentials in config.yaml are kept secure and not shared.
• The web UI is intended for local development and should not be exposed publicly.
• If you plan to use Basic authentication, include both jira_user and jira_password in your config.yaml; API v3 uses Basic by default, while v2 often uses Bearer tokens by default.
• For the MCP integration, Copilot/VS Code users typically configure an stdio server (command: uv, args: [run, --directory, /path/to/jayrah, jayrah, mcp]). Adjust /path/to/jayrah to your local clone path.
• If you need to pass a custom config, Jayrah can read a YAML config file at ~/.config/jayrah/config.yaml with fields like jira_server, jira_user, jira_password, jira_project, and api_version.
• When using the CLI, TUI, or gencontext features, you may need network access to Jira and appropriate permissions to perform the requested actions.
• The MCP server can be extended in editors that support stdio MCPs; for VS Code, you can add a server entry with type stdio and command uv as shown in the documentation.