Integrating with development tools

Connecting Jira Software to compatible development tools provides your team with a range of functionality and information related to your development work. You can connect to multiple instances of the same development tool, but it's recommended you set up one of these instances as the primary link, meaning Jira Software will query that instance first when looking for that sort of information. For example, if you connect to Bitbucket Server instance A and Bitbucket Server instance B, and you make Bitbucket Server instance A the primary instance, when Jira Software needs info relating to Bitbucket Server it will query instance A.

Integration features

These are the features that become available when you connect Jira Software to the development tools listed below. We recommend that you use the latest version of each application – if you're using earlier versions, see the version matrix to find out which features are available.

On this page:

How it works

When the Atlassian development tools are integrated with Jira Software, a user simply needs to supply an issue key for the issue to be automatically linked:

• Commits are linked automatically if the issue key is included in the commit message.

• Branches are linked automatically if the issue key is included in the branch name.

• Pull requests are linked automatically if the issue key is included in the pull request's title or in the source branch name.

• Reviews are linked automatically if the issue key is included in the title of the review, or if the issue is linked from the review.

• Builds and deployments are linked automatically if a commit involved in the build has the issue key in its commit message. 

When triggers are configured in the workflow for your  project, particular events published by the developer tools automatically transition issues.

There are some details and known issues:

• When a user attempts to access one of the details dialogs, for commits, reviews, builds or pull requests, Jira Software checks that they have the appropriate permissions to view the information in the dialog. It does this using the user authentication that is configured in the Application Link.
• The details dialogs (ex: for commits) may display duplicates, although the number of unique items are reported at the top of the dialog and in the Development panel summary. Duplicate commits, for example, can arise from having both Bitbucket Server and Fisheye linked to Jira Software, and Fisheye in turn connected with Bitbucket Server, so that Fisheye indexes, and reports. commits.
• Users who can see summarized data in the Development panel may not have permission to see in the details dialogs (for example, for branches, commits and pull requests) all the information that contributed to the summaries. That is, the details dialogs respect the access permissions that users have in the connected applications.
• If commits linked to the issue are involved with a Bamboo build that fails, the first successful build that follows will be reported, even though the original commits are no longer involved with that build.
• The Development panel replaces the Source, Commits and Builds tabs, as well as the Deployment panel, in an issue. So, for example, you won't see the Source tab, and commits in Bitbucket Server will be accessible from the Development panel. However, if a connected application is older than the supported version, information from that application will continue to be displayed in those tabs rather than in the Development panel.

Supported versions

The table below shows the minimum development tool version required for each integration feature in Jira Software.

Development tools configuration for a project

The Development Tools section of the administration screen for a project gives you an overview of the development tools that are connected to your Jira Software instance, and of the users who can use the integrations between Jira and those tools. Users must have access to the Jira Software application to be able to see the Development panel. By default, anonymous users (those who are not logged in) and users without explicit Jira Software application access do not see the panel. 

View Permission

The View Permission section lists the user groups that can see the Development panel in a Jira Software issue. The Development panel displays the Create Branch link and summary information for your development process, such as the number and status of the related commits, pull requests, reviews and builds. The visibility of the panel is controlled by the "View Development Tools" project permission.

Applications

The Applications section lists the development tools that are integrated with Jira Software.

Set up Jira Software with development tools

Check that you have a compatible version of a development tool on the version matrix, then follow the instructions below to connect your code development tools to Jira.

Link to BitBucket Server, Bamboo, Fisheye or Crucible

Jira must be connected with Bitbucket Server, Bamboo, Fisheye or Crucible using application links.

Note that for Bitbucket Server, the following system plugins are required (these are bundled and enabled by default in Bitbucket Server):

• Atlassian Navigation Links Plugin (com.atlassian.plugins.atlassian-nav-links-plugin) 
• Bitbucket Server Dev Summary Plugin (bitbucket-jira-development-integration-plugin).

Link to GitHub or GitHub Enterprise

See Linking a Bitbucket or GitHub repository with Jira.

Link to GitLab or GitLab Self-Managed

See Linking a GitLab or GitLab Self-Managed repository with Jira.

Troubleshooting

Jira Application Development panel displays error - Couldn't read data