Since all commands expects a target site either specified with ‘--site’ flag or through default site configuration you need to add a site before using CLI. Adding a site is interactive operation and CLI will prompt you for site URL, username/email etc.
jira site:add ✔ Site URL? · http://localhost:8080 ✔ Alias for the site? · localhost Checking site...... done ✔ Username? · admin ✔ Password? · ***** ✨ Done in 21.83s.
Adding a Cloud Site
You can’t use username/password combination for accessing Jira Cloud. You need to create a TOKEN for your account and use that TOKEN together with your email to authenticate.
Adding a Server/DC Site
You can use username/password combination to add an on-premise site. User doesn’t need to be an administrator. Permission checks are done by JIRA’s Rest API on the server, not on the command line level. That means although you can try to run any command with any user, only the operations your account has permission to execute will be completed successfully. If you don’t have permission for an action you will receive “Not Permitted” (401/403) response from Jira.