Jira worklog retrieval limit on MCP

Question

We are currently hitting a limitation on the MCP where we can only retrieve and view up to 20 Jira worklogs at a time.

Because we rely on this data for accurate daily time tracking and team reporting, we need visibility into the full set of logs. Is this 20-item cap a hard limit on the MCP side, or can we adjust the parameter/payload to return a larger dataset or enable pagination?

Let me know what our options are here.

Best regards,

tcunha · Answer

around 200; we can have more than one person "billing hours" in a jira card for more than 2 months

Hempel · Answer

Hi @tcunha - This is a Jira API constraint, not an MCP issue. The /rest/api/2/search endpoint returns at most 20 worklogs per issue — it's documented behavior. To get the full set, you'd need to call /rest/api/2/issue/{issueIdOrKey}/worklog per issue and paginate through. If you're tracking time at any scale, the Tempo Timesheets API v4 is worth a look — https://api.tempo.io/4/worklogs supports up to 5,000 worklogs per page with an offset parameter, and lets you filter by project, date range, issue, or user without the per-issue cap. Much easier to work with for bulk retrieval. Happy to connect you with someone to share an example call if useful. Disclosure: I work for the team behind Tempo.

David Day: Appcento · Answer

I'm curious, what's the total item size you're aiming to retrieve in one call, hundreds  or over 1000?