Link GitHub development information to Jira work items
By the end of this doc, you’ll know how to link GitHub branches, commits, pull requests, builds, and deployments directly to Jira work items, giving your team greater visibility of the status of their work.
Use work item keys to link development data to Jira work items
To link your GitHub development data to Jira, you must add a Jira work item key to your commit message, branch name, or PR title.
Find the key for the Jira work item you want to link to, for example “DEV-2095”. You can find the work item key on your work item’s card on your Jira board, or in the navigation on the work item.
Check out a new branch in your repo, using the work item key in the branch name. For example,
git checkout -b DEV-2095-<branch-name>.When committing changes to your branch, use the work item key in your commit message. For example,
git commit -m "DEV-2095 <summary of commit>".When you create a pull request, use the work item key in the pull request title.
After you push your branch, you’ll see the pull request along with other development information in your Jira project.
If you use GitHub Actions, your workflows and deployments will be linked if a commit associated with the deploy contains the work item key in its commit message.
Read more about how to include work item keys in your development work
View GitHub development data in Jira
When your team adds Jira work item keys to GitHub branches, commits, and pull requests, you’ll see development data in the following places:
On Jira work items - the development panel updates automatically to show linked branches, pull requests, commits, builds, and deployments.
Your Jira board - work item cards display icons to indicate when there is a linked branch, pull request, commit, build, or deployment.
The Code tab - shows pull requests that have been linked to work items in your project within the last 30 days.
The Releases tab - linked pull requests, builds, and deployments are shown for all the work items in your version.
The deployments tab - the deployments timeline shows all the deployments linked to your work items. How to link GitHub workflows and deployments to Jira
In JQL - you can search your project for work items that have commits, pull requests, builds, or deployments. For example, you could search for all the work items that are “Done” but have open pull requests. How to search using JQL
In automations - you can automate your workflows to transition work items when activity happens in your GitHub repos. For example, you might create a rule to automatically move work items to “in progress” when a new branch is created. Explore DevOps automation triggers
You must have the project permission “View Development Tools” to see the Development panel in Jira work items. How to update project permissions
Link to Jira work items in GitHub comments
To link to a Jira work item in a GitHub comment, add the Jira work item key in brackets. For example, adding [DEV-2095] to a comment in GitHub will automatically turn the work item key into a link to the Jira work item DEV-2095.
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