Automation for Jira user is not visible or selectable in Jira Cloud sandbox

Summary

The Automation for Jira system user is not visible in user selection dropdown or searchable in Jira Cloud sandbox environments despite being active in production

Environment

This behavior affects Atlassian Cloud sandbox environments across all product tiers where sandbox functionality is available.

Cause

This is a known limitation of how sandbox environments are provisioned. The Automation for Jira user is a specialized system actor that exists in the backend and processes automation flows. However, in sandbox environments, this user is not indexed or synchronized in the same way as standard users, which prevents it from appearing in UI dropdown or user pickers.

Solution

The inability to select the Automation for Jira user in a sandbox is expected behavior based on the current environment design. Because this is a system-generated user, it cannot be manually added to Jira groups or project roles within the sandbox interface.

To ensure your automation flows continue to function correctly in the sandbox, follow these configuration steps:

Verify Add-on Permissions

Automation flows often rely on the atlassian-addons-project-access role to execute actions. Ensure this role has the following permissions in your sandbox projects:

• Browse projects

• Edit issues

• Any other specific permissions required by your flow actions such as Transition issues or Modify reporter

Check Flow Actor Settings

If a flow fails because the actor is missing, you can manually update the flow to use a different execution context:

1. Navigate to Project settings > Automation.

2. Select the specific automation flow you need to edit.

3. Go to the Flow details tab.

4. Locate the Flow actor field and change it to a standard user who exists in the sandbox environment.

5. Choose Save.

Related resources

You can track the progress of this limitation and provide feedback to the development team by watching the following suggestion: AUTO-2221.