With the growing demand for software applications, tech businesses can find it difficult to manage several projects. Task Management necessitates a monitoring system to follow a project in a well-organized manner due to the large number of individuals involved. Jira has emerged as a robust Work Management solution for numerous use cases, from Requirements and Test Case management to Agile Software Development.
Jira has grown in popularity over the years, with 180,000+ customers in 190+ countries using it. You can extend Jira’s capability and tailor it to your business needs by using versatile Jira APIs such as REST APIs and Java APIs. You can use Jira APIs to create apps, automate Jira interactions, create Jira issues or build any other form of integration.
So, are you ready to learn more about Jira APIs? If yes, then let’s begin. In this article, you will learn more about Jira and explore the amazing features it offers. In addition, you will understand How to use Jira APIs and learn the detailed steps to create a Jira issue using Jira Cloud REST API. Therefore, read along to unravel the incredible world of Jira APIs.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Jira
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Jira is a one-stop-shop for all of your Project Management requirements. It started as a Software Development bug tracking tool and now has matured into an issue tracking and Agile Project Management software. It was created by Atlassian, a leading Australian software company that specializes in software products for software development teams.
The Jira dashboard has a lot of handy features and capabilities that make dealing with issues a breeze. Jira, on the other hand, has evolved into a robust task management solution for a number of use cases, ranging from requirements and test case management to agile software development. The Jira family of products assists teams in effectively managing their work. The Jira Product Suite is designed for a variety of teams, including IT, Operations, Software, Business, and others.
Jira’s software is offered as a cloud-hosted SaaS i.e. Jira Cloud as well as a self-managed solution i.e. Jira Server. Jira Cloud is designed for speed and ease of use, whereas Jira Server offers more autonomy and customizable options. Jira’s cost is fairly affordable for small teams, but it skyrockets as the number of users grows.
Key Features of Jira
Jira is one of the most popular projects management tools among developers, due to its amazing features. Let’s explore some of the key features that Jira offers:
- Agile Project Management: All of the features of Scrum Boards and Kanban Boards may be used seamlessly with Jira. Jira also has a variety of reporting tools, such as Burn-down/up Charts, Sprint Reports, and Velocity Charts, that allow teams to monitor their progress in real-time. You may use Jira’s Agile Roadmaps to plan long-term project initiatives, identify bottlenecks, and improve your Project Workflow.
- Workflow Customization: Jira can be customized to fulfill any requirement, whether it’s for Project Management, Issue Tracking, or Task Management. Workflows, reports, Scrum Boards, and other components can be customized as well.
- Robust Integration Support: Developers have access to versatile REST and Java APIs, as well as 3,000+ add-ons and plugins available in the Atlassian Marketplace, making it simple to extend Jira’s power and make it fit for your business needs. As a result, Jira can seamlessly integrate into any Software environment and is ready to use as soon as your account is created.
- Rich Toolkit for Developers: Developers will have access to a Jira Query Language (JQL) that will allow them to create filters and manipulations rapidly. To provide backlog-to-deployment traceability, Jira can be linked to BitBucket and GitHub, and new workflows can be built to manage the multiple ways users build, test, and release their apps.
- Enterprise-Grade Security Control: Jira safeguards data and files with Bank-Grade Security and centralized administration for Jira Software and other Atlassian Cloud products. Admins can develop a flexible governance plan that doesn’t restrict access or collaboration using the tools or processes they need.
- Mobile Apps: Jira’s native mobile apps connect Android and iOS users, making it ideal for large and distributed teams working in a variety of locations.
Do you find Jira amazing? Visit the official homepage here.
Introduction to Jira APIs
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Jira REST APIs are used to connect with the Jira Server applications remotely. For basic features like issues and workflows, the Jira Server platform provides a REST API. Jira APIs can be used to create apps, automate Jira interactions, or build any other form of integration.
Jira REST APIs use URI routes to give users access to resources (data entities). Your application makes an HTTP request and parses the answer to use a REST API. The Jira REST API communicates in JSON and supports conventional HTTP methods such as GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE. REST APIs are available for application-specific capabilities in Jira Software and Jira Service Management, such as sprints (Jira Software) and client requests (Jira Service Management).
When accessing data on Jira, there are two key security concepts to consider:
- Authentication: It determines the identity of the caller.
- Authorization: It determines which options are available to the caller. The actions that the app or integration can perform are limited by the user’s Jira permissions.
By querying and updating data in your Jira site via the Jira REST API, you can interact with Jira. Jira leverages the user used in the login process to authorize requests to the Jira REST API. For instance, if a user has access to Jira and authority to create issues in Jira, he or she can use the Jira REST API to create an issue. However, if the calling user does not have the authority to perform a specific action in Jira, they will be unable to do so using the Jira API.
One of the following authentication methods can be used with the Jira APIs:
- OAuth: To authenticate users, OAuth leverages request tokens provided by Jira. However, it requires more time and effort to set up this Authentication than the other two Authentication methods, but it is more flexible and secure.
- Basic Authentication: To authenticate, the Basic Authentication method relies on a predefined set of user credentials. Except for tools like personal scripts or bots, it is not recommended to use this Authentication method. It’s easier to set up, but it’s also a lot less secure.
- Cookie-Based Authentication: In the browser, Jira uses Cookie-based Authentication. You can rely on this when using the browser to call the REST API (for example, via JavaScript).
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Hevo’s fault-tolerant and scalable architecture ensures that the data is handled in a secure, consistent manner with zero data loss and supports different forms of data. Hevo allows you to bring data from various Sources through its native connectors. However, for situations where you need to bring data from multiple different applications or from an in-house REST API, you can use the REST API Source.
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Steps to Create a Jira Issue with Jira APIs
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In this section, you will learn how to create a Jira issue using Jira Cloud REST API. So, follow the below steps to work with Jira APIs:
Step 1: Create a Jira Cloud Account
If you already have a Jira Cloud Account then go to the Jira website and log in to your account. However, if you don’t have an account, you can choose the free Jira Cloud plan to try and then enter a site name as shown below. Click on “Continue”.
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Step 2: Create the Jira API Token
An API Token is required to authenticate a script or other process with an Atlassian cloud product. Follow the steps below to create a Jira API Token.
- Log in to the Atlassian platform to access Jira Cloud or click here to directly open the page to create the API token.
- Go to Settings → API Tokens and click on “Create API token” as shown below.
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- Enter a distinctive and concise Label for your token in the window that displays, then click Create.
- Copy the token to your clipboard as shown below, then paste it into your script or somewhere else to store it.
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Note: Viewing the same API Token after closing the dialog box is not possible for security reasons. If necessary, you can create a new token by following the above steps.
Step 3: Create a Basic Auth Header
You can now build a basic auth header using your API Token. Any REST API call that requires you to be logged in will require this. Follow the steps below to create a basic auth header:
- Create a string that looks like useremail:api_token.
- Next, encode the string using BASE64 encoding.
For Linux/Unix/MacOS:
echo -n user@example.com:api_token_string | base64
Windows 7 and later, using Microsoft Powershell:
$Text = ‘user@example.com:api_token_string’
$Bytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($Text)
$EncodedText = [Convert]::ToBase64String($Bytes)
$EncodedText
The base64 encoded output is what you’ll need in the YourEncodedStringHere part of the steps below.
Step 4: Develop Your Jira API Call
In this step, you will create a simple curl command to call your REST API endpoint. You must use your Jira Cloud instance’s /rest/api/3/issue endpoint to create an issue. The call’s structure is as follows:
curl --request POST
--url 'https://<your-jira-cloud-instance>/rest/api/3/issue'
--header 'Authorization: Basic YourEncodedStringHere'
--header 'Accept: application/json'
--header 'Content-Type: application/json'
--data '{…}'
In the above script, you are first calling the curl command to inform that you are performing a POST request. In the next line, you will define the URL of the endpoint and then specify the Jira user that will authorize the call using the encoded useremail:api_token string created above.
Next, you will specify the content type of the application i.e JSON. This is where you will enter the actual information that will be utilized to generate your new issue. For example:
"fields": {
"summary": "Hevo is awesome!",
"issuetype": {
"id": "10009"
},
"project": {
"key": "TEST"
},
"description": {
"type": "doc",
"version": 1,
"content": [
{
"type": "paragraph",
"content": [
{
"text": "Description - Hevo is a No Code Data Pipeline",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
}
}
The above script will create an issue in the project with project key TEST with a summary of “Hevo is awesome!” and a description of “Description – Hevo is a No Code Data Pipeline” Calling the issuetype REST API endpoint, as illustrated below, is the simplest approach to get the issue type ids.
curl --request GET
--url 'https://<your-jira-cloud-instance>/rest/api/3/issuetype'
--header 'Authorization: Basic YourEncodedStringHere'
--header 'Accept: application/json'
The above script will provide you with a full list of all issue categories, together with their ids, from which you can choose the one you need.
Step 5: Create Your Issue
Now all you have to do is run your curl command, and if everything went well, you should get something like this:
{
"id":"10052",
"key":"TEST-6",
"self":"https://pvandevoorde.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/issue/10052"
}
The issue id, issue key, and REST API endpoint for the issue you just generated are displayed. Alternatively, you may simply look in your Jira instance, as shown below.
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Bravo!! You’ve just used the Jira API to create your first issue.
Conclusion
In this article, you explored Jira and Jira APIs. More specifically you learned the key features of Jira that make it so popular among the Developers. In addition, you understood the detailed steps to work with Jira APIs. You created your first issue in Jira using the Jira Cloud REST APIs.
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Share your experience with Jira APIs in the comments section below!