Can the Atlassian MCP server allow Claude to download/read images in a Jira ticket?

[Kevin Jay]

I'm working with Claude code and would like it to have access to Jira tickets, including attachments such as screenshots. Is this possible? Is there additional setup involved?

[Justin Meyer]

It doesn't seem like the cloud hosted version at supports attachments. We built a service that is able to get attachments.

For clarity, here's the tools that Github Copilot sees:

• addCommentToJiraIssue – Add a comment to an existing Jira issue.
• atlassianUserInfo – Get current user info from Atlassian.
• createConfluenceFooterComment – Create a footer comment on a Confluence page or blog post.
• createConfluenceInlineComment – Create an inline comment on a page or blog post.
• createConfluencePage – Create a new page in Confluence (regular or live doc).
• createJiraIssue – Create a new Jira issue in a given project with a given issue type.
• editJiraIssue – Update the details of an existing Jira issue.
• getAccessibleAtlassianResources – Get cloud ID to construct API calls to Atlassian REST APIs.
• getConfluencePage – Get a specific page or live doc data (including body content) from Confluence.
• getConfluencePageAncestors – Get all parent pages (ancestors) of a specific Confluence page.
• getConfluencePageDescendants – Get all child pages (descendants) of a specific Confluence page.
• getConfluencePageFooterComments – Get footer comments for a Confluence page.
• getConfluencePageInlineComments – Get inline comments for a Confluence page.
• getConfluenceSpaces – Get spaces from Confluence.
• getJiraIssue – Get the details of a Jira issue by issue ID or key.
• getJiraIssueRemoteIssueLinks – Get remote issue links (e.g., Confluence links) of a Jira issue.
• getJiraProjectIssueTypesMetadata – Get issue type metadata for a specified Jira project. (unchecked)
• getPagesInConfluenceSpace – Get all pages within a specific Confluence space.
• getTransitionsForJiraIssue – Get available transitions for a Jira issue.
• getVisibleJiraProjects – Get visible Jira projects the user has access to.
• lookupJiraAccountId – Lookup account IDs of users in Jira by display name or email.
• searchConfluenceUsingCql – Search content in Confluence using CQL.
• searchJiraIssuesUsingJql – Search Jira issues using JQL.
• transitionJiraIssue – Transition a Jira issue to a new status.
• updateConfluencePage – Update an existing Confluence page or live doc.

I don't see any tool for getting images.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.  I'd rather not host the service myself!

[Utkarsh Agarwal]

Hi @Kevin Jay 

Welcome to the community!

Yes, the Atlassian MCP (Model Context Protocol) server can allow Claude to read or download attachments (like images) from Jira issues, provided proper access is granted.

To enable this:

• Claude must be connected via the Atlassian Remote MCP server.
• The authenticated user (via OAuth) must have permission to view the issue and its attachments.
• Attachments must not be restricted or hidden via project or issue-level permissions.

If you’re using a self-hosted MCP, make sure it’s configured to allow attachment retrieval and that the Claude client is set up to request those scopes.

Kind Regards
Utkarsh

[Raphaël Parent]

Hi!

My current experience seems to be in contradiction with this statement. The Atlassian MCP server I installed, using the recommended command on the Claude Code documentation, fails to fetch attachments. Here's what Claude Code said to me.

First response

In the description field, the image is referenced using a blob URL:

![](blob:https://media.staging.atl-paas.net/?type=file&localId=null&id=64da1fe2-59e5-45dd-a0d1-0c5d0bdc0f33&&collection=&height=2054&occurrenceKey=null&width=3208&__contextId=null&__displayType=null&__
external=false&__fileMimeType=null&__fileName=null&__fileSize=null&__mediaTraceId=null&url=null)

This is a temporary blob URL that:
1. Only exists in the browser session where the image was pasted/uploaded
2. Cannot be accessed by external tools or APIs
3. Is not a permanent reference to the actual attachment

The Actual Image

However, the ticket does have a proper attachment in the attachment field:

{
"id": "46724",
"filename": "casserole_-_gw3bhg8i000511.png",
"mimeType": "image/png",
"content": "https://api.atlassian.com/ex/jira/.../attachment/content/46724",
"thumbnail": "https://api.atlassian.com/ex/jira/.../attachment/thumbnail/46724"
}

Why This Happens

This is a common issue when users:
1. Paste an image directly into the Jira description editor
2. The editor creates a temporary blob URL reference
3. Jira then uploads the image as an attachment
4. But the description markdown still contains the broken blob URL instead of a proper attachment reference

Solution

The Jira MCP can access images - they're available in the attachment field. The issue is that the description text contains a broken blob URL instead of referencing the actual attachment. The proper
attachment URL would be:

https://api.atlassian.com/ex/jira/b6270135-8174-4000-bae3-2827b1960c3b/rest/api/3/attachment/content/46724

To properly handle this, the MCP would need to:
1. Parse the description for blob URLs
2. Match them to actual attachments (if possible)
3. Replace blob URLs with real attachment URLs

This is a limitation of how Jira stores inline images in descriptions when they're pasted directly into the editor.

Second attempt

Then it tried to fetch the image using cli command external to the MCP server using the URL it retrieved, but obviously this return an authentication error.

Second response

I got a 403 Forbidden error. This is because:

Authentication/Authorization Issue: The Jira attachment content endpoint requires authentication. Even though I'm using the Atlassian MCP tools that have your Jira credentials for API calls like
getJiraIssue, the WebFetch tool is a separate tool that doesn't have access to those same credentials.

The WebFetch tool makes unauthenticated HTTP requests, while the Jira API attachment endpoints require:
- A valid session cookie, OR
- An API token in the Authorization header, OR
- OAuth credentials

The Root Cause

The Atlassian MCP has tools for reading Jira metadata (issues, comments, transitions, etc.) but does not have a dedicated tool for fetching attachment content. The available tools can tell you:
- Attachment exists ✅
- Filename: casserole_-_gw3bhg8i000511.png ✅
- Size: 731557 bytes ✅
- MIME type: image/png ✅
- Content URL ✅

But they cannot:
- Download the actual image data ❌
- Display the image ❌

To fix this, the Atlassian MCP would need to add a tool like getJiraAttachmentContent that uses the authenticated API session to download and return the attachment binary data.
```

Conclusion

So it does seem like the Atlassian MCP server is unable to fetch attachement. Claude Code might be wrong, that is always a possibility. But I've had this problem every time I tried to work with an attachement in a ticket. I can see the ticket and I can see the attachment, so I don't think that it's a permission issue.

[Justin Meyer]

We've made our MCP service open source and publicly available.  See my comments above for more info. 

[Raphaël Parent]

That is cool, but I still believe it should be included in the official mcp server.