primer-mcp

Beta — the core workflow is stable and tested, but the tool is new. Expect rough edges.

A Jira-lite MCP server that guides planning-first workflows for AI-assisted development — tickets as markdown files, your AI agent as the interface.

Why

AI coding agents jump straight to implementation. primer-mcp makes them plan first: state why the work matters, record decisions, break it into stories and tasks, then complete and verify each one. The tickets are plain markdown with YAML frontmatter, committed alongside your code — no external service, no database, fully visible in your repo.

Install

Requires Python 3.12+ and uv.

# Run directly (recommended for MCP)
uvx primer-mcp

# Or install permanently
uv tool install primer-mcp

# Update to latest
uv tool upgrade primer-mcp

# Uninstall
uv tool uninstall primer-mcp

Quick start

Add to your MCP client config (e.g. Claude Code settings.json, Claude Desktop claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "primer-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["primer-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Then ask your AI agent to plan some work. The recommended flow is:

init_project  →  plan_epic  →  record_adr  →  create_story  →  create_task

The tools suggest this order but don't block you from skipping steps — if the work is straightforward, go straight from epic to stories. You'll get a helpful nudge if the tools think you might want to record a decision first.

Once tasks exist, the execution cycle is:

start_task  →  complete_task (with notes)  →  verify_task (with evidence)

Not sure what to do next? get_next_action reads the current state and returns exactly one instruction.

Tools

Setup

Planning

Execution

Query

Export

Prompts

CLAUDE.md snippet

init_project appends this to your project's CLAUDE.md automatically. If you prefer to add it manually:

## primer-mcp

This project uses primer-mcp for planning-first development. Tickets are
markdown files under `primer/` — they are yours to read and edit. Prefer the
tools for creating and updating them: they allocate IDs, follow the templates
and guide the workflow. Hand-edit where the tools fall short.

- Plan before code. The recommended flow is Epic -> ADR -> Story -> Task,
  but the tools suggest rather than enforce — skip steps when it makes
  sense for the work at hand.
- Unsure what to do next? Call `get_next_action`.
- Completion is two-phase: `complete_task` with notes, then `verify_task`
  with evidence (point at the commit, not the output). Both are
  recommended — the tools will nudge you if you skip a step.
- After creating tickets, completing tasks, or verifying tasks, offer to
  regenerate the project graph with `export_graph` so the user can see
  the updated picture.
- When the user reports a bug or small fix, check for a standing bug-fix
  story under the epic before creating a new story. Small fixes (1-2
  tasks) go as tasks under that story; larger efforts (3+ tasks) get
  their own story. If no bug-fix story exists yet, suggest creating one.

Graduating to Jira

primer-mcp tickets map directly to Jira concepts (Epic, Story, Task, ADR). When a project outgrows local markdown files, use the export_jira prompt with any Jira MCP server to push tickets to Jira. The external_ref field on each ticket tracks the Jira key, so re-exports update existing issues instead of creating duplicates. import_jira goes the other direction.

This repo dogfoods itself

The primer/ directory is this project's own backlog, created with the tools in src/ and committed deliberately — a tool that tells you to commit your ticket store should commit its own. It doubles as a worked example: browse it to see what a real store looks like before installing anything.

• primer/adrs/ — why the design is what it is, including the alternatives that were rejected and why
• primer/stories/ and primer/tasks/ — what is done, what is next, and the evidence each completed task was verified against

It is project management, not part of the package. The wheel ships src/primer_mcp only, and primer/ is excluded from the source distribution. When you install primer-mcp, init_project creates your primer/ — this one never reaches your machine.

License

MIT