Can't get a real diff when page is edited via MCP

Question

It doesn't seem like I can get a real, proper diff between versions of a page when updated via the MCP. Looks like the MCP only does full text replace, and Atlassian doesn't do any kind of real diff. It just says EVERYTHING is edited, rather than doing a real diff to see what changes were done between the 2 versions. WTF.

Aaron Baff · Answer

This is with Confluence Cloud, and a new page that needs to be updated as things have changed.

Via MCP, the agent has to push it an entire page, so fetch existing, make local changes, push entire updated page. Which Confluence shows as 100% changed, rather than just the changes.

Tomislav Tobijas · Answer

@Aaron Baff I'd say it depends. And I still didn't see MCP/connectors being really consistent.

For example, sometimes they basically rewrite the whole page instead of actually appending only the part you'd like to add. On the other hand, if they do add content on the end, then I guess that's the only part that actually gets modified, so the versioning should work then.

Are you using live docs or classic pages here?

I did see some improvements when it comes to how MCP handles these things but, personally, I do use MCP to create content from skratch, but then just discuss it further within the chat itself rather than asking it to update the content as, in a couple of times, it completely messed the structure, formatting, etc. as it has rewritten the whole page and it seems it still cannot handle specific elements such as layouts and some macros 🫤

I don't know if there's a tracker specifically on how their engine handles these updates, but I'd suggest you/your admin reach out to Atlassian Support and see what they have to say about it 👀

Aaron Baff · Answer

Sadly no, not that close. That's just about adding a marker, my issue is that the MCP is a full replacement, which creates a 100% diff, rather than do what a standard diff does which is to look for actual differences and only show THOSE as what changed.