YouTrack

# Fix list: YouTrack

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/youtrack, the October 2026 research run, assessed 8 October 2026. Grade D, 49.9 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on YouTrack: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Reliability, 30 out of 100, up to 14 more on the total

Why it scored 30: Graded on YouTrack Cloud's REST API and built-in remote MCP server, with the hosted lines. The status page at jetbrains.com/youtrack/cloud/status shows availability for four zones over 24 hours and 30 days, with no components and no incident history (10 of 20). Its feed gave 30 daily figures a zone for 9 September to 8 October 2026. The lowest days were 99.70 per cent in the EU zone on 10 September and 99.85 per cent in the US zone on 3 October, and the 30-day figure across zones was 99.99 per cent. No incident descriptions and nothing before 9 September could be read (10 of 30). No rate limits were found in the reviewed documentation (0). No 429 handling, backoff guidance or idempotency keys were found (0). The Cloud terms promise commercially reasonable efforts and no SLA was found, and a two-hour maintenance window is scheduled each week (0). The REST API and the MCP server (since 2025.3) are not marked beta (10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 2. Payments & pricing, 30 out of 100, up to 8.8 more on the total

Why it scored 30: No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Prices are public per user on a sliding scale, with no per-call price. JetBrains announced USD 5.40 a user a month on monthly billing and USD 4.50 on annual billing from 1 October 2025, and the pricing page served GBP 4.30 and GBP 43 a year to our network on 8 October 2026 (10). The free plan covers ten users and three helpdesk agents with the REST API and MCP server. We did not go through signup to confirm no card is asked for (20). A person registers the instance and creates a token or approves OAuth in a browser (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 3. Agent ergonomics, 55 out of 100, up to 7.3 more on the total

Why it scored 55: 23 predefined MCP tools (15), and the `tools` and `ignoreTools` URL parameters cut the list a client receives (7 more, 22 of 25). On REST the `fields` parameter selects attributes and nested attributes, `$top` and `$skip` page most collections at 42 items by default, issue activities use cursors, `/api/issues` takes the search query language, and MCP list tools take offset and limit (20). No error reference was found for the REST API. The MCP docs say `manage_issue_tags` returns suggestions when a tag is not found (5 of 20). No idempotency keys were found, and `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` could not be checked without a token. `muteUpdateNotifications` suppresses notifications on writes (2 of 20). Creating an issue needs only `summary` and `project`, but every read needs `fields` or it returns only `id` and `$type`. No current official SDK was found, and YouTrackSharp for .NET was last published on 31 March 2023 (6 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 4. Security & auth, 67 out of 100, up to 5.8 more on the total

Why it scored 67: OAuth 2.0 through the built-in Hub service, with authorisation code and PKCE (S256), client credentials, a user consent setting and Client ID Metadata Documents from 2026.2. Permanent tokens can be deleted, never expire, and carry two scopes, YouTrack and YouTrack Administration. The deprecated implicit flow returns the token in a URL fragment (24 of 30). Calls act with the user's role permissions, administrators can hide projects and issues from AI tools, and automatic client registration is off by default. No read-only token scope and no server-side confirmation step were found (12 of 20). Tools return issue, comment and article text written by other people. The docs tell users to review tool calls and the client's data handling, and give no injection guidance (5 of 15). Audit Events log changes to users, groups and projects with author and IP address, issue changes sit in activity streams, and workflow rules can flag MCP changes through `isMcpRequest`. No per-call API log was found (10 of 15). security.txt with a contact and a Coordinated Disclosure Policy promising a reply in 24 hours, discretionary rewards with no formal bounty, SOC 2 stated from version 2023.2 with reports on request, and CVEs published in a security bulletin (16 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 5. Schema & documentation, 72 out of 100, up to 4.6 more on the total

Why it scored 72: Every instance serves an OpenAPI 3.0.1 document at `/api/openapi.json`. The copy on youtrack.jetbrains.com is public, at version 2026.3, with 281 operations on 157 paths and 232 schemas. The MCP tool schemas need a token and were not read (25). Both docs sites have an llms.txt and a Markdown copy of each page, and the instance serves its own `/llms.txt` (10). Only 3 of 281 operations carry a summary or description in the spec, though parameters do. The reference pages describe each resource with required permissions, and the MCP tools page says what each of the 23 tools returns and which tool to call first (13 of 20). The spec marks read-only attributes and has 394 `required` entries, but only 3 enums, timestamps are Unix milliseconds, and custom fields are polymorphic by `$type` (8 of 15). Reference pages carry sample requests and responses. Every operation in the spec documents only a 200 response, and the only error material found was the OAuth error tables and two troubleshooting pages (6 of 15). A REST API changelog lists additions and deprecations for 2026.1 and 2026.2 by version, without dates, and the path carries no version (10 of 15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 6. Maintenance & community, 64 out of 100, up to 3.2 more on the total

Why it scored 64: YouTrack 2026.2 build 19562 is dated 5 October 2026 in JetBrains' release feed (30). The feed lists 19 Server builds across 2025.3, 2026.1 and 2026.2 between 15 July and 5 October 2026 (20). Release notes for each build link to the public tracker at youtrack.jetbrains.com, and there is a support request form and a REST API changelog. Response times were not checked (11 of 15). The official MCP registry holds one YouTrack entry, from a third party, and no current official SDK was found (0). Docker images are published for each build. YouTrackSharp, the .NET library JetBrains names, was last published in March 2023 (3 of 10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## 7. Transparency & trust, 82 out of 100, up to 1.6 more on the total

Made of editorial 65, provenance 98.

Why it scored 82: Closed service under the YouTrack Cloud Terms of Service, version 2.0 effective 14 August 2024, naming JetBrains s.r.o. and Czech law (15 of 30). The terms, the Privacy Notice (version 3.2, 12 June 2026) and the Data Processing Addendum agree. Backups are kept for one month after a deletion request and six months after termination, JetBrains says it will not train AI models on customer data, and native AI runs on models JetBrains deploys. The DPA dates from 27 April 2022 (24 of 30). Deprecations are announced by version (Hub endpoints in 2026.1, the implicit flow), with no policy or notice period, and the terms reserve the right to alter capabilities (8 of 20). The third-party list, version 3.15 effective 30 September 2026, names Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL for YouTrack Cloud, and the owner picks one of four AWS regions (18 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Terms of service: read, states 5 of the 7 things a reader expects (8.3 of 10)
- Privacy policy: read, states 7 of the 8 things a reader expects (9.3 of 10)

## Deductions

Each comes off the total. A fixed and documented problem counts for less at the next check.

- 2026-04-17. CVE-2026-33392, a sandbox bypass allowing code execution by an administrator, reported in March 2026. JetBrains says the impact was greatest in YouTrack Cloud, where it could bypass cross-tenant isolation on shared hardware, that Cloud was mitigated within 48 hours, and that it found no evidence of exploitation. Fixed and disclosed, so 3 of a possible 15 (https://blog.jetbrains.com/youtrack/2026/04/security-issue-in-youtrack-cve-2026-33392/)
- 2026-06-19. CVE-2026-56141 (admin account takeover through authentication token forgery) and CVE-2026-56142 (email verification bypass), found in May 2026, affected YouTrack Cloud, and CVE-2026-50242 affected Server. JetBrains says Cloud was patched before the post and that it found no evidence of exploitation outside testing. Fixed and disclosed, so 2 points (https://blog.jetbrains.com/youtrack/2026/06/youtrack-security-update-youtrack-server-upgrade-required/)

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- unchecked: the MCP tool definitions (input schemas, `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint`), since `/mcp` answers 401 without a token. The count of 23 comes from the docs page
- unchecked: current US dollar prices. The pricing page served pounds to our network, so the dollar figures are those JetBrains announced for 1 October 2025
- unchecked: status history before 9 September 2026 and any incident descriptions. The status page publishes availability percentages only, drawn by script from a feed we read directly
- Whether YouTrack Cloud enforces rate limits. None were found in either docs index or the pages read
- Whether free plan signup asks for a card. We did not go through signup
- How REST errors are shaped. No error reference was found, and the OpenAPI document lists only 200 responses
- The SOC 2 report type and date. The security page says reports are available from support on request
- The Coordinated Disclosure Policy gives its last update as 10 October 2026, two days after our check
- The OpenAPI document on youtrack.jetbrains.com reports version 2026.3, while the newest public release is 2026.2
- The lead was right about the vendor and the REST API. It did not mention the built-in MCP server, which is graded here alongside the API

## Weaknesses

- No rate limits, 429 handling, idempotency keys or error reference found in the reviewed documentation
- The status page shows availability percentages by region for 24 hours and 30 days, with no incident history, and no SLA was found
- Two security disclosures in 2026 affected YouTrack Cloud, a cross-tenant isolation bypass (CVE-2026-33392) and an admin account takeover (CVE-2026-56141). Both were patched
- Permanent tokens never expire and carry only two coarse scopes, YouTrack and YouTrack Administration
- No current official SDK. YouTrackSharp for .NET covers a subset of the API and was last published on 31 March 2023

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Send `fields` on every REST request. Without it the server returns only the database ID and `$type` of each entity
- Page collections with `$top` and `$skip`. Most resources return 42 items by default
- Call `get_issue_fields_schema` before `create_issue` or `update_issue`, because required custom fields differ by project
- Connect MCP clients to `https://<instance>.youtrack.cloud/mcp`. OAuth needs an administrator to enable CIMD or register the client, since Dynamic Client Registration is not supported
- Create permanent tokens with the YouTrack scope only, and add `?tools=` to the MCP URL to limit the tools listed

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.