From Specs to Tickets: Automating Jira Setup with Node.js and the Jira API

The plan was simple Take the specs we'd written, turn them into Jira epics, stories and subtasks, and start sprinting. It took longer than expected. Here's what actually happened — and what I learned. Why automate Jira setup at all? HandyFEM has 8 epics, 37 stories and ~160 subtasks. Creating that manually would take a full day and be error-prone. More importantly: the specs were already written in a structured format. Translating structured data into Jira issues is exactly the kind of repetitive task that should be automated. So I wrote a Node.js script to do it via the Jira REST API. Problem 1 — Jira Spaces ≠ Jira Classic My account uses Jira Spaces — Atlassian's newer interface. The classic Jira has CSV import built in. Jira Spaces doesn't. This isn't documented anywhere obviously. You discover it by looking for the import option and not finding it. Lesson: always check which version of Jira you have before planning your workflow. The API still works, but some endpoints behave differently. Problem 2 — The API token wasn't the issue (until it was) First attempt: connection error. I assumed it was the token. It wasn't — it was an expired token from a previous session. Regenerating it fixed the connection. The real lesson: curl -u email:token https://your-domain.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/myself is the fastest way to verify auth before running any script. Problem 3 — customfield_10014 doesn't exist in team-managed projects In classic Jira, linking a story to an epic uses a field called customfield_10014 (Epic Link). In team-managed projects (Jira Spaces), this field doesn't exist. You use parent instead. The error was clear once I saw it: "customfield_10014" : "Field cannot be set. It is not on the appropriate screen, or unknown." Fix: remove customfield_10014 , keep only parent: { id: epicId } . Problem 4 — Board search doesn't work for team-managed projects The Agile API endpoint /rest/agile/1.0/board?projectKeyOrId=HFM returns empty for team-managed projects, even