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Can the Jira Audit Records API be used to track deleted issues?

Seung Yeon Han

Hi Community,

I’m using the Jira REST API to extract issue data for reporting.

One challenge I have is keeping track of deleted issues. My extraction is incremental, but to track deleted issues, I currently do a full load of all issue_keys every day and compare them with the previously extracted data. This takes quite a long time.

I noticed that deleted issue events can now be seen in the Jira administrator audit log, including which issue was deleted.

I found the Audit Records API:

GET /rest/api/3/auditing/record

Before requesting the required administrator permission from our Jira team, I wanted to check:

Does this API return the same deletion events that are visible in the administrator audit view?
Can I identify which issue was deleted, for example by issue key or issue ID? I'm not interested in the content of the issues that are deleted. Any identifier would be enough.

Thanks!

Accepted answers

Mihai_LeanZero

Yes, by key only. I tested it on a test site today. Each delete showed up within seconds as summary "Deleted Jira issue", typeName ISSUE_DELETE, key in objectItem.name. No numeric id.
https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/api-group-audit-records/

GET /rest/api/3/auditing/record?from=<last run>&filter=Deleted%20Jira%20issue&limit=1000

Page with offset until a page comes back short. The total field stays the whole-log count even with a filter. The id has to come from the key to id map of the earlier extract, so a key that changed after the last run won't match.

One gap I hit: deleting a whole project only logs "Project marked as deleted" and "Project deleted", nothing per issue. Watch for those and keep the full key diff as a weekly check.

It needs Administer Jira and a paid Jira plan, and the retention setting limits how far back a run can catch up after a gap, which matters if the job ever stops for a while. There's also a jira:issue_deleted webhook for push.
https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/audit-activities-in-jira-applications/

Thanasis Nikolaou

Hi @Seung Yeon Han, yes. The Get audit records API reads the same audit log admins see in Jira administration, and Atlassian lists work item deletes there as tracked by work item number, so each deletion record identifies the key.

For your daily job, call GET /rest/api/3/auditing/record with from set to your last run time and filter=deleted, then take the key from the record's objectItem (worth checking one sample record first). It needs the Administer Jira global permission.

If you'd rather get them as they happen, an automation rule with the Work item deleted trigger and a Send web request action can push each key to your system.

Docs: Audit activities in Jira and Audit records API

All comments

Mihai_LeanZero

GET /rest/api/3/auditing/record?from=<last run>&filter=Deleted%20Jira%20issue&limit=1000

One gap I hit: deleting a whole project only logs "Project marked as deleted" and "Project deleted", nothing per issue. Watch for those and keep the full key diff as a weekly check.

Thanasis Nikolaou

If you'd rather get them as they happen, an automation rule with the Work item deleted trigger and a Send web request action can push each key to your system.

Docs: Audit activities in Jira and Audit records API

Seung Yeon Han

Thank you so much!

Seung Yeon Han

Thanks a lot! and great tip for the project deletion :D

Vishal Suri

Hi @Seung Yeon Han

Yes—this API returned individual issue-deletion events in my Jira Cloud test, with the issue key but no numeric issue ID.

In testing today, each deletion appeared within seconds with:

summary: Deleted Jira issue
objectItem.typeName: ISSUE_DELETE
objectItem.name: the deleted issue’s key

You can retrieve these incrementally using:

GET /rest/api/3/auditing/record?from=<last-run-timestamp>&filter=Deleted%20Jira%20issue&limit=1000

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