Jira and other MCP servers

codev’s skills can pull context from external systems through the MCP servers connected to your Claude Code session. The CLI itself never talks to them: the skills detect what they need in your request and call the MCP tool directly.

Today, one integration is available: /codev-propose reads a Jira ticket.

Jira

When your request to /codev-propose contains a ticket identifier — anything matching [A-Z]{2,}-\d+, such as PROJ-123 — and a Jira MCP tool is configured, the skill:

1. calls the configured tool once, for the first identifier it found;

2. uses the ticket’s title, description, status and type as context for the plan;

3. cites the ticket at the top of the proposal:

   # Proposal: Add dark mode
   
   > Source: ticket **PROJ-123** — "Dark mode for the dashboard" (In Progress)
   
   ## Why
   

The integration is strictly read-only: one call to the one configured tool, never a search, a comment or a transition. If the request mentions several tickets, only the first is fetched; the others are listed under the citation for traceability.

If a ticket is mentioned but the MCP server is not available in the session, the skill says so, writes the proposal from your request alone, and cites the ticket as “content not retrieved”.

Configuration

The name of the Jira tool depends on how the MCP server is registered in your Claude Code setup, so it is configured per project:

# _codev/config.yaml
mcp:
  jira_tool: mcp__atlassian__getJiraIssue

codev init fills it in for you when it finds a server whose name, command or URL mentions Jira or Atlassian in .mcp.json, .claude/settings.json or ~/.claude.json:

  ✓ Jira MCP detected: mcp__atlassian__getJiraIssue
    (source: .mcp.json → server "atlassian")

The tool name follows Claude Code’s convention, mcp__<server name>__getJiraIssue, with spaces and dots in the server name replaced by underscores — for example, a connector named claude.ai Atlassian Rovo gives mcp__claude_ai_Atlassian_Rovo__getJiraIssue. If yours differs, look for the exact name in the tool list of a Claude Code session and set it by hand.

At install time, codev adds the tool to the allowed-tools of codev-propose, so the skill may call it and nothing else from that server. After changing mcp:, regenerate the skills:

codev update --force

Without mcp.jira_tool, ticket detection is inert: the skill behaves exactly as it does in a project without any MCP integration.

Note mcp: is never inherited from an inherited source: tool names depend on each person’s Claude Code setup, not on a shared repository.

Adding another MCP integration

MCP integrations are part of codev itself: each one is a configuration key and a placeholder in a workflow, so adding one — for example a Confluence page or a design tool — is a contribution to codev rather than a setting. The pattern is the same as for Jira:

1. Add a key under mcp: in the project configuration (crates/codev-engine/src/config.rs).
2. Carry it into the skill render context and substitute a placeholder such as {{JIRA_MCP_TOOL}} in both the allowed-tools and the body of the workflow that uses it (crates/codev-agents/src/claude.rs).
3. Describe the detection and the call in the workflow file under assets/workflows/, with a clean fallback when the key is absent.

The existing skill is extended rather than duplicated: there is one /codev-propose, whatever the source of the request. See CONTRIBUTING.md to propose one.