Restrict MCP to certain spaces and projects

[devnix]

It would be nice and give a lot of peace of mind if the MCP could be configured to only "look" inside certain Jira projects or Confluence spaces, specially in big organizations.

[iosamaatlassian]

Yeah, but I think this is better done at the client side. For example, in the local/personal AGENTS.MD you can specify for Atlassian Rovo MCP, default project is X and Space is Y if not mentioned in the message then use them.

I tested this and it's working well for me.

## Atlassian Rovo MCP

When connected to atlassian-rovo-mcp
SET default Jira project key = SCRUM
SET default Confluence space to spaceId = "295161"
SET default CloudId = "https://atlassian-mcp-dev.atlassian.net"

[iosamaatlassian]

Hey @devnix

Did this approach work for you? another idea is that we implement default properties through query string. WDYT?

[devnix]

The agents.md trick works, but my question was more about restricting the MCP to a list of projects and spaces as a security measure

[schaveyt]

This is no bueno for large organizations where some projects are restricted from allowing LLM making edits but can read just fine

The Need:

On The Server:

1. Ability to provide a Edit Restricted Jira Project List where all matching projects have edit tools rejected
2. Ability to provide a Edit Restricted Confluence Project List where all matching projects have edit tools rejected
3. Ability to provide a Fully Restricted Jira Project List where all matching projects have mcp calls rejected
4. Ability to provide a Fully Restricted Confluence Project List where all matching projects have mcp calls rejected

Background

I support a deployment of the mcp-atlassain and supports project filtering but it took the whitelist approach but what we really need is a black list approach
https://mcp-atlassian.soomiles.com/docs/configuration#filtering-options

[iosamaatlassian]

Thanks @schaveyt I will discuss this with the team and revert back. Handling restricted edit should be simple as edit tools can easily restrict certain projects/spaces, the challenge is with read tools specially around search tools as any post filtering mechanism will lead to bad search experience. I will think about few approaches like appending search query or allow LLMs to construct the right search query from the start.

[schaveyt]

@iosamaatlassian 🙏 thank you. I think the highest priority for our organization and others is the edit tools. My suspicion is that 99% of enterprise will be fine with the read tools. 👍

is the source open source by chance, I can provide contributions as I have for the mcp-atlassian project. If not, no worries.

[iosamaatlassian]

Hi all, on a side note we shipped a feature to allow restricting/adding certain capabilities that would help with read/write #11 (comment)

I'll raise a PR for edit restrictions and get back once the change is deployed.

[ms1111]

We would like to block access to Jira spaces that are more likely to contain private content (boards used for managing support tickets). Users are able to see work items in those spaces, but we'd rather not trust coding assistants with them because of the lethal trifecta.

[schaveyt]

@iosamaatlassian and @ms1111

Putting it all togther

• REQ-001: The MCP server shall default the ability to read and edit a Jira Project
• REQ-002: The MCP server shall support the ability to specify permissions overrides per project
• REQ-003: The MCP server shall all the user to override a disable all read tools for a specific Jira Project
• REQ-003: The MCP server shall all the user to override a disable all edit tools for a specific Jira Project

Desire Content on Admin Page

The default behavior of the Atlassian Rovo MCP server is to provide read and edit tools to all Projects. However, administrator have the ability to override this behavior on a per project basis using the configuration table below:

Jira Project Permission Override

Jira Project Key	Disable Read Tools	Disable Edit Tools	Resulting Effect
KEUF	[ ]	[x]	The KEUF project can be read and cannot be edited
DTOIH	[ ]	[x]	The DTOIH project can be read and cannot be edited
REXY	[ ]	[x]	The REXY project can be read and cannot be edited
PRIV	[x]	[x]	The PRIV project cannot be read and cannot be edited

---

End

[schaveyt]

@iosamaatlassian how are this tracking? Will any aspect of these rqmts approve for your roadmap?

[DavidEllis008]

This issue is blocking our ability to adopt Rovo MCP. @iosamaatlassian is there an update on this?

[blacksab]

This issue is blocking our ability to adopt Rovo MCP as well.