## TL;DR

For Jira Cloud REST calls with basic auth, use your account email as the username and an API token as the password, base64-encoded into the Authorization header.

## Steps

1. For Jira Cloud REST calls with basic auth, use your account email as the username and an API token as the password, base64-encoded into the Authorization header. A real password returns 401 every time now. Create the token from your Atlassian account security settings and store it like any other credential.

## When to use

You are seeing this: A real password returns 401 every time now. Use this skill when you run into "Jira Cloud basic auth needs an API token, not your password".

## When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

## Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

## Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.