createIssueLink inverts inwardIssue and outwardIssue parameters

[danielvaucrosson]

Description

The createIssueLink tool reverses the inwardIssue and outwardIssue parameters when creating issue links, producing the opposite relationship from what was requested.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create two issues (e.g., IQS-2 and IQS-4)
2. Call createIssueLink with:
   • type: "Blocks"
   • outwardIssue: "IQS-2" (intended: IQS-2 "blocks")
   • inwardIssue: "IQS-4" (intended: IQS-4 "is blocked by")
3. Open IQS-2 in the Jira UI

Expected Behavior

IQS-2 should show "blocks IQS-4" under Linked Work Items, since IQS-2 was specified as the outwardIssue and the outward label for "Blocks" is "blocks".

Actual Behavior

IQS-2 shows "is blocked by IQS-4" — the inward/outward roles are swapped. IQS-4 appears as the blocker instead of the blocked issue.

Impact

Every link created via createIssueLink has its direction reversed. This affects all directional link types (Blocks, Cloners, etc.). In our case, all 7 dependency links on a project were created backwards and had to be manually corrected in the Jira UI, since the MCP does not expose a delete-link tool.

Environment

• Jira Cloud (team-managed projects)
• Link type tested: "Blocks" (outward: "blocks", inward: "is blocked by")
• Observed via both the Jira UI and the GET issue API response (issuelinks field)

Additional Context

Related to #45, which introduced the createIssueLink tool. The Jira REST API defines:

• outwardIssue: the issue with the "outward" relationship (e.g., "blocks")
• inwardIssue: the issue with the "inward" relationship (e.g., "is blocked by")

It appears the MCP tool maps these parameters to the opposite fields in the underlying API call.

[iosamaatlassian]

Hi @danielvaucrosson

Thanks for sharing this, the mcp tool passes the data as is but it seems like the description is not enough for LLMs to pass the right parameters to it. I will update it today to ensure the tool has enough info so LLMs can do the right linkage types.

[iosamaatlassian]

@danielvaucrosson thanks heaps for your feedback, the change has been rolled out. We added more instructions to the llms on how to correctly use the tools.

I will close the issue but please feel free to open it or share other improvements.