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MCP Server Setup Guides

Step-by-step configurations for common MCP servers. Copy-paste ready for your .kiro/settings/mcp.json.

GitHub - PRs, Issues, Repos

Step 1: Create a Personal Access Token

  1. Go to GitHub → Settings → Developer settings → Fine-grained tokens
  2. Click Generate new token
  3. Name it something like "Kiro MCP"
  4. Set expiration (90 days is a good balance)
  5. Under Repository access, select the repos you want Kiro to access (or "All repositories")
  6. Under Permissions, grant:
    • Issues: Read and write
    • Pull requests: Read and write
    • Contents: Read (for reading code in PRs)
    • Metadata: Read (required)
  7. Click Generate token and copy it

Step 2: Add to mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "ghp_your_token_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 3: Verify

Open the Kiro sidebar → MCP Servers. You should see "github" listed with a green status. Try: "List my open PRs" or "Create an issue in repo X titled Y".

What you can do with it

Tip: You already have gh CLI available as a built-in tool (via execute_bash). The MCP server gives the model more structured, direct access to GitHub's API without needing to construct CLI commands. Both work - the MCP route is cleaner for complex operations.

Jira + Confluence - Self-hosted Setup

If your organisation uses self-hosted Jira/Confluence (not Atlassian Cloud), you'll need the sooperset/mcp-atlassian Python server with Personal Access Tokens.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Clone and install

# Navigate to your preferred directory
cd ~/mcp-servers

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/sooperset/mcp-atlassian.git
cd mcp-atlassian

# Create virtual environment
python3 -m venv venv

# Activate virtual environment
source venv/bin/activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -e .

Step 2: Create .env file

Create a .env file in the mcp-atlassian directory:

# MCP-ATLASSIAN CONFIGURATION
JIRA_URL=https://jira.yourcompany.com
CONFLUENCE_URL=https://confluence.yourcompany.com

# Personal Access Tokens (from profile → Personal Access Tokens)
JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN=your-jira-pat-here
CONFLUENCE_PERSONAL_TOKEN=your-confluence-pat-here

# SSL verification
JIRA_SSL_VERIFY=true
CONFLUENCE_SSL_VERIFY=true

# Filter to specific projects/spaces (comma-separated, optional)
JIRA_PROJECTS_FILTER=PROJ1,PROJ2
CONFLUENCE_SPACES_FILTER=TEAM,DOCS

# Logging
MCP_VERBOSE=true

# Set true to prevent writes (safe for testing)
READ_ONLY_MODE=false

Step 3: Create startup script

Create ~/mcp-servers/mcp-atlassian/start-mcp-atlassian.sh:

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/mcp-servers/mcp-atlassian
source venv/bin/activate
python run_server.py --env-file .env -v
chmod +x ~/mcp-servers/mcp-atlassian/start-mcp-atlassian.sh

Step 4: Configure in Kiro

Add to ~/.kiro/settings/mcp.json (global, so it works across all workspaces):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "atlassian": {
      "command": "/bin/bash",
      "args": ["~/mcp-servers/mcp-atlassian/start-mcp-atlassian.sh"]
    }
  }
}

Step 5: Verify

Check Kiro sidebar → MCP Servers. Test with:

Getting Personal Access Tokens

  1. Go to your profile in Jira/Confluence
  2. Navigate to Personal Access Tokens
  3. Create a new token
  4. Copy it into the .env file

Troubleshooting

Jira - Cloud Setup (Atlassian Cloud)

If you use Atlassian Cloud (yourcompany.atlassian.net) instead of self-hosted, the setup is simpler - use the npm package directly:

  1. Go to Atlassian API Tokens
  2. Click Create API token
  3. Name it "Kiro MCP"
  4. Copy the generated token

Step 2: Identify your details

Step 3: Add to mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "jira": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@aashari/mcp-server-atlassian-jira"],
      "env": {
        "ATLASSIAN_SITE_NAME": "mycompany",
        "ATLASSIAN_USER_EMAIL": "you@company.com",
        "ATLASSIAN_API_TOKEN": "your-api-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 4: Verify

Check Kiro sidebar → MCP Servers for "jira" with green status. Try: "List my assigned Jira issues" or "Search for issues in project MYPROJ".

What you can do with it

Alternative: Official Atlassian Rovo MCP (Remote)

Atlassian also offers an official remote MCP server (no local process needed). This uses OAuth authentication and supports both Jira and Confluence:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "atlassian": {
      "url": "https://mcp.atlassian.com/v1/mcp/authv2"
    }
  }
}

After adding the config, Kiro will prompt you to authenticate via OAuth when you first use Atlassian tools. Check Atlassian's setup guide for full details.

GitHub + Jira Together

You can configure both in the same mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "github": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@modelcontextprotocol/server-github"],
      "env": {
        "GITHUB_PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN": "ghp_your_token_here"
      }
    },
    "jira": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@aashari/mcp-server-atlassian-jira"],
      "env": {
        "ATLASSIAN_SITE_NAME": "mycompany",
        "ATLASSIAN_USER_EMAIL": "you@company.com",
        "ATLASSIAN_API_TOKEN": "your-jira-token-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

With both connected, you can do things like: "Create a PR for the current branch and link it to MYPROJ-123 in Jira" - Kiro will use both servers in sequence.

Security Reminders

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