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REST APIs

The Jira REST APIs are used to interact with the Jira Server applications remotely, for example, when configuring webhooks. The Jira Server platform provides the REST API for common features, like issues and workflows.

To get started, read the reference documentation: Jira Server platform REST API.

The Jira Software and Jira Service Management applications have REST APIs for their application-specific features, like sprints (Jira Software) or customer requests (Jira Service Management).

If you haven't used the Jira REST APIs before, make sure you read the Atlassian REST API policy.

The Jira Server platform REST API resources are also documented in this WADL file: jira-rest-plugin.wadl.

Authentication and authorization

For more information on authentication and authorization, read the Security overview.

URI structure

Jira REST APIs provide access to resources (that is, data entities) via URI paths. To use a REST API, your application makes an HTTP request and parse the response.

The Jira REST API uses JSON as its communication format and the standard HTTP methods like GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE. URIs for Jira REST API resource have the following structure:

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http://host:port/context/rest/api-name/api-version/resource-name

Currently there are two API names available, which will be discussed later on this page:

  • auth: – for authentication-related operations.
  • api: – for everything else.

The current API version is 2. However, there is also a symbolic version called latest that resolves to the latest version supported by the given Jira instance.

As an example, if you wanted to retrieve the JSON representation of issue  JRA-9 from Atlassian's public issue tracker, you would access:

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https://jira.atlassian.com/rest/api/latest/issue/JRA-9

Using the REST APIs

The following topics describe how the Jira REST APIs are structured and how you can interact with them.

Expansion

To simplify API responses, the Jira REST API uses resource expansion. This means that the API will only return parts of the resource when explicitly requested. This helps you avoid problems that can occur when you request too little information (for example, you need to make many requests) or too much information (for example, performance impact on Jira).

You can use the expand query parameter to specify a comma-separated list of entities that you want expanded, identifying each of them by name. For example, appending ?expand=names,renderedFields to an issue's URI requests the inclusion of the translated field names and the HTML-rendered field values in the response.

The following example expands the name and renderedFields fields for issue JRA-9:

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https://jira.atlassian.com/rest/api/latest/issue/JRA-9?expand=names,renderedFields

To find out which fields are expandable, look at the expand property in the parent object. In the following example, the widgets field is expandable:

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{
    "expand": "widgets",
    "self": "http://jira.atlassian.com/rest/api/resource/KEY-1",
    "widgets": { "widgets": [], "size": 5 }
}

You can use the dot notation to specify expansion of entities within another entity. For example, ?expand=widgets.fringels  would expand the widgets collection and also the fringels property on each widget.

Pagination

Jira uses pagination to limit the response size for resources that return a potentially large collection of items. A request to a paged API will result in a values array wrapped in a JSON object with some paging metadata, for example:

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{
    "startAt" : 0,
    "maxResults" : 10,
    "total": 200,
    "values": [
        { /* result 0 */ },
        { /* result 1 */ },
        { /* result 2 */ }
    ]
}
  • startAt: – the item used as the first item in the page of results.
  • maxResults: – number of items to return per page.
  • total: – total number of items to return, subject to server-enforced limits. This number may change as the client requests the subsequent pages. A client should always assume that the requested page can be empty. REST API consumers should also consider the field to be optional. In cases when calculating this value is too expensive it may not be included in the response.
  • isLastPage: – indicates whether the current page returned is the last page of results.

Clients can use the startAt, maxResults, and total parameters to retrieve the desired number of results. Note that each API resource or method may have a different limit on the number of items returned, which means you can ask for more than you are given. The actual number of items returned is an implementation detail and this can be changed over time.

Ordering

Some resources support ordering by a specific field. This is provided by the orderBy query parameter.

Ordering can be ascending or descending. To specify the type of ordering, use the "+" or "-" symbols for ascending or descending respectively. By default, ordering is ascending. For example, ?orderBy=+name will order the results by name in ascending order. 

Many fields have a self link that takes you to the canonical location for that resource. For example:

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"reporter": {
    "self": "http://jira.atlassian.com/rest/api/2/user?username=admin",
    "name": "admin",
    "emailAddress": "admin@example.com",
    "displayName": "Administrator",
    "active": true
},

Making a GET request to the self link can sometimes provide you with additional information about the field. For example, if we make a GET request for the self link for the reporter field above, the response will contain additional information about the user, including the timezone and groups. 

Special request and response headers

  • X-AUSERNAME – response header that contains either username of the authenticated user or 'anonymous'.
  • X-Atlassian-Token – methods that accept multipart/form-data will only process requests with X-Atlassian-Token: no-check header.

Error responses

Most resources will return a response body in addition to the status code. Usually, the JSON schema of the entity returned is the following:

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{
    "id": "https://docs.atlassian.com/jira/REST/schema/error-collection#",
    "title": "Error Collection",
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "errorMessages": {
            "type": "array",
            "items": {
                "type": "string"
            }
        },
        "errors": {
            "type": "object",
            "patternProperties": {
                ".+": {
                    "type": "string"
                }
            },
            "additionalProperties": false
        },
        "status": {
            "type": "integer"
        }
    },
    "additionalProperties": false
}

Field input formats

Summary: A system field that is a single line of text.

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"summary": "This is an example summary"

Description: A system field that is multiple lines of text.

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"description": "This is an example description with multiples lines of text\n separated by\n line feeds"

Components: A system field that is multiple values addressed by 'name'.

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"components" : [ { "name": "Active Directory"} , { "name": "Network Switch" } ]

Due date: A system field that is a date in 'YYYY-MM-DD' format.

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"duedate" : "2015-11-18"

Labels: A system field that is an array of string values.

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"labels" : ["examplelabelnumber1", "examplelabelnumber2"]

Checkbox custom field: A custom field that allows you to select a multiple values from a defined list of values. You can address them by value or by ID.

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"customfield_11440" : [{ "value" : "option1"}, {"value" : "option2"}]

or

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"customfield_11440" : [{ "id" : 10112}, {"id" : 10115}]

Date picker custom field: A custom field that is a date in YYYY-MM-DD format.

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"customfield_11441" : "2015-11-18"

Date time picker custom field: A custom field that is a date time in ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sTZD format.

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"customfield_11442" : "2015-11-18T14:39:00.000+1100"

Labels custom field: A custom field that is an array of strings.

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"customfield_11443" : [ "rest_label1", "rest_label2" ]

Number custom field: A custom field that contains a number.

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"customfield_11444" : 123

Radio button custom field: A custom field that allows you to select a single value from a defined list of values. You can address them by value or by ID.

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"customfield_11445" : { "value": "option2" }

or

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"customfield_11445" : { "id": 10112 }

Cascading select custom field: A custom field that allows you to select a single parent value and then a related child value. You can address them by value or by ID.

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"customfield_11447" : { "value": "parent_option1", "child": { "value" : "p1_child1"} }

or

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"customfield_11447" : { "id": 10112, "child": { "id" : 10115 } }

Multi-select custom field: A custom field that allows you to select a multiple values from a defined list of values. You can address them by value or by ID.

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"customfield_11448" : [ { "value": "option1" }, { "value": "option2" } ]

or

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"customfield_11448" : [ { "id": 10112 }, { "id": 10115 } ]

Single-select custom field: A custom field that allows you to select a single value from a defined list of values. You can address them by value or by ID.

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"customfield_11449" : { "value": "option3" }

or

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"customfield_11449" : { "id": 10112 }

Multi-line text custom field: A custom field that allows multiple lines of text.

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"customfield_11450": "An example of multiples lines of text\n separated by\n line feeds"

Text custom field: A custom field that allows a single line of text.

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"customfield_11450": "An example of a single line of text"

URL custom field: A custom field that allows a URL to be entered.

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"customfield_11452" : "http://www.atlassian.com"

Single-user picker custom field: A custom field that allows a single user to be selected.

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"customfield_11453" : { "name":"tommytomtomahawk" }

Multi-user picker custom field: A custom field that allows multiple users to be selected.

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"customfield_11458" : [ { "name":"inigomontoya" }, { "name":"tommytomtomahawk" }]

Examples

The Jira REST API examples guide contains a range of examples, including examples of requests for creating issues, updating issues, searching for issues, and more.

We've also provided a simple example below to get you started. The example shows you how to create an issue using the Jira REST API. The sample code uses curl to make requests, but you can use any tool you prefer.

Note:

  • The input file is denoted by the --data @filename syntax. The data is shown separately, and uses the JSON format.
  • Make sure the content type in the request is set to application/json, as shown in the example.
  • POST the JSON to your Jira server. In the example, the server is http://localhost:8080/jira/rest/api/2/issue/.
  • The example uses basic authentication with admin/admin credentials.
  • You'll need to add a project to the instance before running and get the project ID of the project to which you want to add the issue beforehand.

To create an issue using the Jira REST API, follow these steps:

  1. Create the data file that contains the POST data. For this example, we'll assume the file is named data.txt.

  2. Add the following JSON to the file:

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    {
    "fields": {
       "project":
       {
          "id": "10000"
       },
       "summary": "No REST for the Wicked.",
       "description": "Creating of an issue using ids for projects and issue types using the REST API",
       "issuetype": {
          "id": "3"
       }
   }
}

    In this data, the project ID is 10000 and the issue type in our case is 3, which represents a task.  You should pick an ID of a project in your instance and whichever issue type you prefer.

    Note that instead of the id you can also use the key and name for the project and issuetype respectively. For example,"key": "TEST" for the project and "name": "Task" for the issuetype.

  3. In Terminal window, run the following command:

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    curl -u admin:admin -X POST --data @data.txt -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8080/jira/rest/api/2/issue/

    As before, adjust details for your environment, such as the hostname or port of the Jira instance. Note that a cloud instance or most public instances would require the use of HTTPS and, of course, valid credentials for the instance.

  4. When your issue is created, check the response that will look something like this: 

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    {
   "id":"10009",
   "key":"TEST-10",
    "self":"http://localhost:8080/jira/rest/api/2/issue/10009"
} 

    That's it! You can use the issue ID, issue key, and the URL to the issue for additional requests, if you wish.

To get an issue you just created, use http://localhost:8080/jira/rest/api/2/issue/{issueIdOrKey} endpoint:

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curl -u admin:admin http://localhost:8080/jira/rest/api/2/issue/TEST-10 | python -mjson.tool

We use python -mjson.tool to pretty print json.

Webhooks

Webhooks are user-defined callbacks over HTTP that are specific to the Jira REST API. Jira webhooks allow the Jira REST API to inform a remote application when changes have occurred, for example, an issue transition. This saves the application from having to periodically poll Jira (via the REST API). To learn more, read the Webhooks page.

Jira REST clients

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