Commenting on an Issue

Adding comments to an issue is a useful way to record additional detail about an issue, and collaborate with team members. Comments are shown in the 'Comments' tab of the 'Activity' section when you view an issue.

When adding a comment, you can set the comment to be Viewable by members of a particular project role or user group only; or you can allow all users to view it. For users to view a comment, they must have the 'Browse Project' permission to view the issue, and for each comment they must be a member of the Viewable by users (see Adding a Comment below).

On this page:

Adding a comment

1. Open the issue on which to add your comment.
2. Click the 'Comment' button at the top of the page. Refer to the note below if you do not see this button.
   
   This opens the comment text box at the top of the page, where you can enter your comment:
   
   Alternatively, if you are at the end of an issue, click the 'Comment' button at the end of the page to open the comment text box at the bottom of the page.
   
3. Type your comment, using as many lines as you require.
   You can use wiki markup if you wish.
4. If you wish to apply viewing restrictions to this comment, click the open padlock icon next to Viewable by... and select which users will be able to view this comment.
   The Viewable by... list also includes all project roles and groups to which you belong. (Note that All Users means everybody who uses JIRA, while Users means everybody who is a member of the Users project role in this project.) Depending on how your JIRA administrator has configured 'Comment visibility', the Viewable by... list may include groups as well as project roles.
   Once viewing restrictions have been applied to a comment, the padlock icon closes and Viewable by... is replaced by Restricted to... and indicates the user, project role or group, who can view this comment, for example:
   
5. Click the 'Add' button.

Screenshot: Example comment with visibility restrictions

For each comment on an issue, a small version of the comment author's user avatar appears to the left of their full name.

To add comments to an issue, you must have both of the following permissions:

• 'Browse Project' permission — to view the issue to be commented on
• 'Add Comments' permission — to add a comment to the issue

Collapsing/Expanding a comment

Note that 'Collapsing' or 'Expanding' a comment does not relate in any way to 'visibility restrictions'.

To collapse or expand a comment:

1. Locate the comment in the Activity section at the bottom of the issue.
2. Browse to the comment you wish to collapse/expand.
3. To 'collapse' a comment, click the Collapse icon, located on the comment:
   
4. To 'expand' a collapsed comment, click the Expand icon, located on the comment:
   

Editing a comment

To edit a comment,

1. Locate the comment in the Activity section at the bottom of the issue.
2. Browse to the comment you wish to edit.
3. Click the Edit (pencil) icon, located on the comment:
   
4. Edit the comment's text and/or Viewable by list as required.
5. Click the 'Save' button.
6. The word 'edited' will be displayed to indicate that the comment has been edited. You can hover your mouse over the word 'edited' to see who edited the comment and when, e.g.:
   

You can edit your own comments if you have been granted the 'Edit Own Comments' permission. You can edit other people's comments if you have been granted the 'Edit All Comments' permission.

Deleting a comment

1. Browse to the comment you wish to delete.
2. Click the Delete (trash-can) icon, located on the comment:
   
3. Confirm the deletion by clicking the Delete button.

You can delete your own comments if you have been granted the 'Delete Own Comments' permission. You can delete other people's comments if you have been granted the 'Delete All Comments' permission.

Linking to a comment

Sometimes you may want to link to a specific comment within a JIRA issue. To do this,

1. Browse to the comment you wish to link to.
2. Click the Permlink (link) icon, located on the comment:
   
3. The comment will now be highlighted in pale blue, e.g.:
   
   If your JIRA issue contains an extensive list of comments, the issue page will automatically be scrolled down so that the linked comment is visible.
4. The URL in your browser's address bar will now look something like this: http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/TST-123?focusedCommentId=94796#action_94796
5. Copy the URL from your browser's address bar and paste it into wherever you want to link from (e.g. an email).