Atlassian MCP Detailed Setup

Advanced configuration and detailed documentation for the Atlassian MCP server.

For basic setup, see MCP Setup - Atlassian MCP.

Separate Confluence and Jira Configurations

The quick start configures both services together. You can also configure them separately:

Confluence Only

claude mcp add maven-confluence -s user \
  -e CONFLUENCE_URL=https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence \
  -e CONFLUENCE_PERSONAL_TOKEN=<your-confluence-pat> \
  -- docker run -i --rm \
    -e CONFLUENCE_URL \
    -e CONFLUENCE_PERSONAL_TOKEN \
    ghcr.io/sooperset/mcp-atlassian:latest

Jira Only

claude mcp add maven-jira -s user \
  -e JIRA_URL=https://issues.apache.org/jira \
  -e JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN=<your-jira-pat> \
  -- docker run -i --rm \
    -e JIRA_URL \
    -e JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN \
    ghcr.io/sooperset/mcp-atlassian:latest

Using Shell Environment Variables

Claude Code supports `${VAR}` syntax for environment variable interpolation at runtime. This approach ensures tokens are never persisted in configuration files.

  1. Set environment variables in your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.):

    export CONFLUENCE_PERSONAL_TOKEN="your-confluence-token-here"
export JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN="your-jira-token-here"

  2. Configure MCP without embedding tokens:

    claude mcp add maven-atlassian -s user \
  -e 'CONFLUENCE_URL=https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence' \
  -e 'CONFLUENCE_PERSONAL_TOKEN=${CONFLUENCE_PERSONAL_TOKEN}' \
  -e 'JIRA_URL=https://issues.apache.org/jira' \
  -e 'JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN=${JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN}' \
  -- docker run -i --rm \
    -e CONFLUENCE_URL \
    -e CONFLUENCE_PERSONAL_TOKEN \
    -e JIRA_URL \
    -e JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN \
    ghcr.io/sooperset/mcp-atlassian:latest

The `${VAR}` references are expanded at runtime from your shell environment.

If an environment variable is not set when Claude Code starts, configuration parsing will fail. Ensure your tokens are exported before launching Claude Code.

Security Best Practices

Never commit Personal Access Tokens to version control. Always use the `${VAR}` interpolation syntax to keep tokens out of configuration files.

Apache Maven Project Keys

Confluence

Space Key

MAVEN

URL

https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN

Jira

Apache Maven has migrated to GitHub Issues. Jira access is primarily for historical issue lookup.

The mcp-atlassian server supports JIRA_PROJECTS_FILTER to limit searches to Maven projects. The quick start already includes this filter.

Troubleshooting

Docker Image Not Found

Pull the latest image:

docker pull ghcr.io/sooperset/mcp-atlassian:latest

Authentication Errors

  • Verify your PAT has not expired

  • Ensure the token was copied correctly (no extra whitespace)

  • Check that you’re using the correct URL (no trailing slash)

Connection Timeouts

Apache infrastructure may have rate limits. Add appropriate delays between requests if making many queries.

Related