What constitutes a change for the JIRA API?

[Darryl Hilton]

I run a query a few times a day as follows:

https://api.atlassian.com/ex/jira/(JIRACLOUDID)/rest/api/3/search/jql?jql=project=(PROJECTID) AND updated>=2025-10-27&validateQuery=warn&expand=changelog&maxResults=1000&fields=*all

It is bringing plenty of live results where an issue/story has been changed. However it doesn't bring back everything, even ones I know there has been a change for (comment added etc). If I search specifically for an issue using the call bellow I can see the recent change is within the result.

https://api.atlassian.com/ex/jira/$(JIRACLOUDID)/rest/api/3/search/jql?jql=issuekey=(ISSUENUMBER)&fields=*all

Can anyone see why I would not be getting this on my original call?

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Darryl Hilton 

That newer search endpoint...

https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/api-group-issue-search/#api-rest-api-3-search-jql-get

Can only return 100 work items when any field other than the issue ID or Key is requested.  With only one of those, it can return up to 5000 items.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Darryl Hilton]

Ah I see, I suspect this is where I am losing some items, and not all. So I can do my initial search without the &fields=*all at the end and it lists every item that has had a change, but not the fields.

I could in theory then pass each of those one at a time, requesting the fields?

[Bill Sheboy]

How you use those endpoints depends upon your usage scenario...If you need to identify them and then get the fields, changelogs, etc., you would get the work item list and then iterate to get the needed content.  And as @Sunny Ape notes: not all things which can change are in the changelogs.

[Sunny Ape]

Hello @Darryl Hilton 

The answer is simpler than you think.... not everything that can be changed on a Work Item is logged in the changelog, therefore those changes don't qualify the Work Item as having been changed in any particular time range. Open a Work Item, look at the changelog, then add a Comment and look at the changelog again and see there is no entry for that change.

PS. Bill is correct. You will only ever get a maximum of 100 results back when you ask for the JQL search endpoint to return any other fields other than the Work Item's key or ID