Watch, share, and comment on an issue

You'll often be working on Jira issues as part of a team, so it's important you can share what's happening to keep your team up to date. You'll also need to keep up with the progress of issues you may not be directly working on. This is where watching, sharing, and comments come in.

Watch issues

Watching means you receive notifications when things happen on an issue. For example, when someone comments on, edits, or transitions the issue, you'll be notified.

To watch an issue, open it and click the watch icon  at the top right. If you have permission, the watch icon also lets you view and manage the list of watchers on the issue. Add watchers to make sure they're informed of important issue updates.

Automatic watching

You can choose whether or not to automatically watch issues you comment on or update. You can go to Your profile and settings () > Personal settings to see and set your Watch your issues preference.

Vote on issues

You can tell your team you think an issue is important by voting for it. The more votes an issue has, the more relative importance it has to your team. 

To vote on an issue, open it and click the vote icon at the top right. From there, you can also see the number of votes on the issue as well as who else has voted for it.

Share issues

The easiest way to share an issue is by grabbing a link to it and sending it using your favorite messaging app or email. Open an issue you want to share and hover your pointer over the issue key in the top-left corner (ABC-123, for example). You'll see a small copy icon pop out, which you can click to copy the link to the issue.

Comment on issues

Comments can range from simple text updates to let watchers know what's happening on the issue, to code snippets, images, tables, and more. The editor converts things like links, code, and markdown on-the-fly, so you can paste in your content and let the editor do the work.

Common markdown formatting options:

• ## for H2 style (we support H2–H5)
• **bold** for bold
• *italic* for italic
• ``` for a code block
• [this is link text](www.atlassian.com) for this is link text
• * for bulleted lists (like this one )
• 1. for numbered lists

Mention your teammates

If you need someone to know about a comment, you can mention them in it. Type @ followed by their name, then choose the right person from the list. The person you mention will be notified about your comment and can quickly jump to the issue to see what's happening.

Apply comment permissions

If your comment is only meant for a specific Jira group or project role, comment permissions let you restrict your comments to the appropriate audience. When writing your comment, click the lock icon under it and choose a Jira group or project role to restrict it to.

1. Comment permissions – Choose a group or project role to restrict your comment to.

React to comments 😍

Sometimes there's nothing more to say, and a 👍 or 🔥 to someone else's comment is all you need. You can quickly react using a popular set of emoji, or use the full emoji picker for a larger emotional range. 

Click the add reaction  button below a comment to react, and let the commenter know what you think 😉

Link to comments and work log entries

Save your team time and confusion by copying and pasting links to comments and work log entries.

To link to comments and work entries:

1. View an issue.
2. Hover over a comment or work entry.
3. Click copy ().
4. Paste the link to your team.
   

Sort activity by newest or oldest first

You can read an issue starting from either its earliest activity or its latest. Depending on the type of issue, one of them might give you more context than the other, but you can switch between the two at any time.

To sort activity by newest or oldest first:

1. View an issue.
2. Scroll down to the Activity section.
3. Select Oldest first or Newest first.
4. Select how you want your comments, history, and work log entries sorted.