jira-pull-request-extractor
Recursively extract GitHub Pull Request links from Jira issues
When & Why to Use This Skill
The Jira Pull Request Extractor is a specialized Claude skill designed to automate the discovery and extraction of GitHub Pull Request links from Jira issues. It recursively scans issue hierarchies (including epics and subtasks) to identify PR links within descriptions, comments, and remote link changelogs, delivering a structured JSON map of code changes associated with specific project tasks.
Use Cases
- Automated Release Documentation: Quickly gather all GitHub PRs linked to a Jira Epic and its descendant issues to generate comprehensive release notes and changelogs.
- Development Traceability: Audit the relationship between Jira requirements and code implementation by mapping PR metadata (state, title, URLs) across complex issue structures.
- Project Status Monitoring: Track the progress of multiple subtasks by consolidating the merge status of all associated pull requests into a single, machine-readable report.
- Cross-Platform Data Integration: Export structured PR-to-Jira mapping data for use in custom internal dashboards or reporting tools.
| name | Jira Pull Request Extractor |
|---|---|
| description | Recursively extract GitHub Pull Request links from Jira issues |
Jira Pull Request Extractor
This skill recursively discovers Jira issues and extracts all associated GitHub Pull Request links.
IMPORTANT FOR AI: This is a procedural skill - when invoked, you should directly execute the implementation steps defined in this document. Do NOT look for or execute external scripts (like extract_prs.py). Follow the step-by-step instructions in the "Implementation" section below.
When to Use This Skill
Use this skill when you need to:
- Discover all GitHub PRs associated with a Jira feature and its subtasks
- Extract PR metadata without analyzing PR content
- Build a complete map of PRs for documentation or release notes
Key characteristics:
- ✅ Always recursive: Automatically discovers all descendant issues via
childIssuesOf()JQL - ✅ PR-only: Extracts only Pull Request URLs (ignores Issue and Commit URLs)
- ✅ Dual-source: Extracts from both changelog remote links and text content (description/comments)
- ✅ Structured output: Returns JSON with PR metadata and deduplication across sources
Prerequisites
- MCP Jira server configured and running (required - see
plugins/jira/README.mdfor setup) jqinstalled for JSON parsing- GitHub CLI (
gh) installed and authenticated for fetching PR metadata - User has read permissions for target Jira issues (including private issues via MCP authentication)
- User has read access to linked GitHub repositories
Output Format
Purpose: This skill returns structured JSON that serves as an interface contract for consuming skills and commands.
Delivery Method:
- Primary: Output JSON directly to the response (no file writes, no user prompts)
- Secondary: Only save to
.work/extract-prs/{issue-key}/output.jsonif user explicitly requests to save results
Schema Version: 1.0
Structure
{
"schema_version": "1.0",
"metadata": {
"generated_at": "2025-11-24T10:30:00Z",
"command": "extract_prs",
"input_issue": "OCPSTRAT-1612"
},
"pull_requests": [
{
"url": "https://github.com/openshift/hypershift/pull/6444",
"state": "MERGED",
"title": "Add support for custom OVN subnets",
"isDraft": false,
"sources": ["comment", "description", "remote_link"],
"found_in_issues": ["CNTRLPLANE-1201", "OCPSTRAT-1612"]
}
]
}
Fields:
schema_version: Format version ("1.0")metadata: Generation timestamp, command name, and input issuepull_requests: Array of PR objects withurl,state,title,isDraft,sources, andfound_in_issues
Implementation
The skill operates in three main phases:
🔍 Phase 1: Descendant Issue Discovery
Discovers all descendant issues using Jira's childIssuesOf() JQL function (automatically recursive).
Implementation:
Fetch issue metadata using MCP Jira tool:
mcp__atlassian__jira_get_issue( issue_key=<issue-key>, fields="summary,description,issuetype,status,comment", expand="changelog" )- Extract
fields.description- for text-based PR URL extraction - Extract
fields.comment.comments- for PR URLs mentioned in comments - Extract
changelog.histories- for remote link PR URLs fromRemoteIssueLinkfield changes
- Extract
Search for ALL descendant issues using JQL:
mcp__atlassian__jira_search( jql="issue in childIssuesOf(<issue-key>)", fields="key", limit=100 )- Important:
childIssuesOf()is already recursive - returns ALL descendant issues (Epics, Stories, Subtasks, etc.) regardless of depth - Single JQL query gets everything - no manual recursion needed
- Only fetch
keyfield here - will fetch full data (including changelog) per-issue in Phase 2 - Note:
jira_searchdoes NOT supportexpandparameter - usejira_get_issuewithexpand="changelog"for each issue
- Important:
Fetch full data for each issue (including root + all descendants):
for each issue_key: mcp__atlassian__jira_get_issue( issue_key=<issue-key>, fields="summary,description,issuetype,status,comment", expand="changelog" )- This fetches description, comments, and changelog (which includes remote links)
- Excludes issue links (
relates to,blocks, etc.) - only parent-child relationships
🔗 Phase 2: GitHub PR Extraction
Extracts PR URLs from two sources:
Source 1: Jira Remote Links via Changelog (primary)
- Extract remote links from issue changelog (using MCP with authenticated access):
# Fetch issue with changelog expansion (store in variable) issue_json=$(mcp__atlassian__jira_get_issue \ issue_key="${issue_key}" \ expand="changelog") # Extract RemoteIssueLink entries from changelog pr_urls=$(echo "$issue_json" | jq -r ' .changelog.histories[]?.items[]? | select(.field == "RemoteIssueLink") | .toString // .to_string | match("https://github\\.com/[^/]+/[^/]+/(pull|pulls)/[0-9]+") | .string ' | sort -u) - Important:
- Remote links appear in changelog as
RemoteIssueLinkfield changes - Changelog contains link creation events with GitHub PR URLs in
toStringorto_stringfield - Store results in variables, not temporary files
- Uses MCP authentication (no separate curl needed)
- Remote links appear in changelog as
- Filters for GitHub PR URLs matching
/pull/or/pulls/pattern
Source 2: Text Content (backup)
- Searches both
fields.descriptionandfields.comment.comments[](already fetched in Phase 1) - Description: Extract from
fields.description(plain text or Jira wiki format) - Comments: Iterate through
fields.comment.comments[]array and search eachcomment.body - Uses regex:
https?://github\.com/([\w-]+)/([\w-]+)/pulls?/(\d+) - Example extraction (using variables):
# From description (stored in variable from MCP response) description_prs=$(echo "$description" | \ grep -oE 'https?://github\.com/[^/]+/[^/]+/pulls?/[0-9]+') # From comments (parse JSON in memory) comment_prs=$(echo "$issue_json" | \ jq -r '.fields.comment.comments[]?.body // empty' | \ grep -oE 'https?://github\.com/[^/]+/[^/]+/pulls?/[0-9]+') # Combine all PRs all_prs=$(echo -e "${description_prs}\n${comment_prs}" | sort -u)
Deduplication:
- Merges URLs found in multiple sources/issues
- Tracks
sourcesarray:["comment", "description", "remote_link"](alphabetically sorted)"comment": Found in issue comments"description": Found in issue description"remote_link": Found via Jira Remote Links API
- Tracks
found_in_issuesarray:["OCPSTRAT-1612", "CNTRLPLANE-1201"](alphabetically sorted) - Important: If same PR URL found in multiple sources or issues, merge into single entry with combined arrays
📊 Phase 3: Data Structuring and Output
PR Metadata: Fetch via gh pr view {url} --json state,title,isDraft. CRITICAL: When building the output JSON, you MUST use the exact values returned by gh pr view - do NOT manually type or guess PR states/titles.
Output: Build JSON in memory using jq -n, output to console. Only save to .work/extract-prs/{issue-key}/output.json if user explicitly requests.
Important: Use bash variables for all data - no temporary files to avoid user confirmation prompts.
Error Handling
- MCP server not available: Display error message directing user to configure MCP server (see Prerequisites)
- Issue not found: Log warning and continue with remaining issues
- Permission denied:
- If MCP returns 403 for private issues, verify JIRA_PERSONAL_TOKEN is configured correctly
- MCP authentication handles all Jira access (including changelog and remote links)
- Changelog expansion fails: If
expand="changelog"returns error, continue with text-based extraction only (graceful degradation) - No PRs found: Return empty
pull_requestsarray (valid result) - Too many descendants: If hierarchy has >100 issues, increase
limitparameter injira_search - GitHub rate limit: If
gh pr viewfails due to rate limiting, display error with reset time - PR metadata fetch fails: If
gh pr viewreturns error (PR deleted/private), exclude that PR from output
Performance Considerations
API calls: 1 jira_search + N jira_get_issue (with changelog) + M gh pr view
- Example: 11 issues = 12 MCP calls + M PR fetches
- Changelog expansion includes remote links (no extra calls needed)
- Can parallelize: issue fetching and PR metadata fetching
File I/O: Save PR metadata to .work/extract-prs/{issue-key}/pr-*-metadata.json, build final JSON by reading files