Service Account Cannot Read Issues via REST API Despite Having Project Membership

[WindleB]

Hi,

I have a service account (sa-cio-fallout-mgmt-tool-94t9zfo16r@serviceaccount.atlassian.com)
that I've provisioned via the Atlassian API token request process for automation workflows.

The service account has been added as a member to the "OF" project in our Jira Cloud instance
(telus-cio.atlassian.net), and it has the following scopes granted:
- read:jira-user
- read:jira-work
- write:jira-work

However, when the service account attempts to search for issues via the REST API using JQL queries
like "project = OF AND summary ~ billing", it returns 0 results, even though the same query
returns 336+ results when I (a regular user) run it in Jira.

I've confirmed:
✓ The service account is added to the OF project members
✓ The API authentication is working (no 401/403 errors)
✓ The JQL query is valid (works for regular users)
✓ The API endpoint is accessible

Based on Jira documentation, I understand that "Jira permissions also control access to data
and aren't overridden by scopes." This suggests the service account may lack the "Browse projects"
permission at the project level.

**Questions:**
1. Does the service account need a specific project role (Developer, Viewer, etc.) to read issues via API?
2. What is the minimum permission level needed for a service account to search and read issues
in a project via REST API?
3. Should I request that the service account be assigned a higher role in the OF project?

Any guidance would be appreciated!

Thank you.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Hi @WindleB,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

Yes, the service account need browse space permission in order to be able to read work items in the space you want it to run the query in. Just having read access in the scope is not enough. So if you are using the default permission scheme, adding the user to the User space role should solve your issue.