Close duplicate work items with automation

Summary

Configure an automation to identify and automatically close duplicated work items once they are created. This can be helpful when you receive automatic tickets that can be accidentally created more than once.

Solution

1. Trigger: work item created.

2. Action: Lookup work items. Use the JQL query below: The escaped inner quotes match the full summary text rather than individual words. Enter the query exactly as shown so the lookup finds work items with the same summary.

   summary ~ "\"{{issue.summary}}\""

3. Condition: {{smart values}} condition. Add a condition to check if there are work items with the same summary:

   1. First value: {{lookupIssues.size}}

   2. Condition: greater than

   3. Second value: 1

      The lookup returns every work item with a matching summary, including the one that just triggered the rule. Comparing {{lookupIssues.size}} to greater than 1 means the rule closes the new work item only when at least one earlier duplicate already exists.

4. Action: Transition work item to close this new work item.