Used together, the Atlassian Jira Software Cloud plugin for Jenkins and the Jenkins for Jira app for Jira provide a free, secure, and reliable way to connect your Jenkins server, running behind the firewall, with either Jira Software Cloud or Jira Service Management Cloud.
This gives your team more visibility and context on every issue in Jira, showing the latest build status or if your work has been successfully deployed to an environment.
You can also use this information to search across issues using the Jira Query Language (JQL), answering questions like “Which issues in the current sprint have been deployed to production?” You can even add these as quick filters on your boards!
To connect Jenkins for Jira and get data flowing to your Jira projects, you’ll need to perform, or delegate, the following tasks:
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In Jira, install the Jenkins for Jira app
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In Jira, start a connection to Jenkins
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In Jenkins, install the Atlassian Jira Software Cloud plugin (if necessary)
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In Jenkins, enter the connection credentials provided in Jira to complete your connection
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In your source code management platform, or in Jenkins, edit your projects' Jenkinsfiles to set up what data is sent from Jenkins to Jira
In many teams, it makes sense to split these tasks up between team members that have the appropriate permissions and experience.
The Jenkins for Jira connection process will guide you through delegating these tasks. However, before you begin you should know who your Jenkins admin is and which of your team members are responsible for editing the Jenkinsfiles that define your Jenkins pipelines.
If you’re not sure who these team members are, reach out to the Jira project team(s) that are using Jenkins to build and deploy their code. They’ll be able to direct you to the right people.
Permissions necessary: Jira site admin
Install the Jenkins for Jira (Official) app via Atlassian Marketplace:
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Log in to your Jira site and go to Apps > Explore more apps.
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Search for the Jenkins for Jira (Official) app and select Get app.
Permissions necessary: Jira site admin
After installing the Jenkins for Jira app on your Jira site, you’ll need to start a connection to Jenkins.
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In Jira, go to Apps > Manage your apps.
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In the left sidebar, under Apps, select Jenkins for Jira.
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If this is your first connection, you’ll be taken to the connection wizard. If you’ve previously connected a Jenkins server, select Connect another server to go to the wizard.
Follow the on-screen prompts in the connection wizard. This experience will vary depending on whether you are a Jenkins admin or a Jenkins admin is helping you, but in either case after giving your server a name, you’ll be provided with two credential items: a webhook URL and secret token to use in Jenkins.
To complete the connection process, you or your Jenkins admin will need to log in to Jenkins, set up the server, and use these credentials to complete a connection.
Permissions necessary: Jenkins admin
Once a Jira site admin has started a connection in Jira, you’ll need to install the Jira Cloud plugin on Jenkins to complete the connection.
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Log in to your Jenkins server and go to Manage Jenkins > Plugins > Available plugins.
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Search for Atlassian Jira Software Cloud and install the plugin.
If you can’t find the plugin in the Available plugins screen, it may already be installed on your server. To check:
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Log in to your Jenkins server and go to Manage Jenkins > Plugins > Installed plugins.
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Search for Atlassian Jira Software Cloud.
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If the plugin is already installed, run any available updates.
Permissions necessary: Jenkins admin
With the Atlassian Jira Software Cloud plugin installed on your Jenkins server, and a webhook URL and secret token at hand, you can now complete the connection between Jenkins and Jira.
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In Jenkins, go to Manage Jenkins > Atlassian Jira Software Cloud.
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Select Add new site.
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Enter your Jira site name
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Enter your Webhook URL
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Enter your Secret using the Jenkins credential manager.
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Select Add
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From the Kind dropdown, select Secret text
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Paste the secret provided in the Jenkins for Jira connection wizard in the Secret field
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Give your secret a descriptive name (such as your site name) in the Description field
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Select Add
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Use the Secret dropdown to select the secret you just entered.
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Select Test connection to make sure your credentials are valid for your Jira site.
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Select Save.
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If you’ve successfully entered your site name and credentials, you’ll be returned to Manage Jenkins > Atlassian Jira Software Cloud.
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(Optional) Set up build and deployment automations, if appropriate to your team.
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Select Save
At this point, your Jenkins server is connected to Jira.
If you’re a Jenkins admin helping a Jira site admin to complete the connection process, let them know you’ve completed the connection. If you’re a Jira site admin with Jenkins permissions (ie: you’re completing the entire setup yourself), it’s time to return to Jira
Permissions necessary: Write access to Jenkinsfiles on your Jenkins server or source code management platform
Once your Jenkins server is connected to Jira, Jira will generate a set up guide to help your team choose what data flows from the server to Jira. Your team must follow this guide to receive build and deployment events from Jenkins.
To access the set up guide for a server:
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In Jira, go to Apps > Manage your apps
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In the left sidebar, under Apps, select Jenkins for Jira.
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Navigate to the server you just selected and open the Set up guide tab. This guide will detail what your team needs to do to set up the flow of data between Jenkins and Jira.
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In most cases, the information in a set up guide is best used by developers in your project teams. Use Share this guide with your team to send them the guide in a read-only version of the Jenkins management page.
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Once your team has set up what build events your Jenkins server should send to Jira, you’ll start seeing those events populate the Recent events tab in your server.
Whenever a pipeline runs in Jenkins, the Atlassian Jira Software Cloud plugin will look in that pipeline’s Jenkinsfile for signs it should send data to Jira.
The plugin looks for two things:
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Specific instructions -
jiraSendBuildInfoandjiraSendDeploymentInfo- within build or deployment stages. -
Specific naming conventions for build and deployment stages (if the plugin has been set up to look for them)
If the plugin finds either of these, it will look for Jira issue keys in the commit messages and branch names of code being built or deployed in those stage, respectively. If it finds these, it will send event data about those stages (such as whether a build was successful or failed) to Jira. If no issue keys are found, the plugin will not send data to Jira.
When your Jira receives event data from Jenkins, the Jenkins for Jira app displays relevant event data in your Jira issues, on the deployment pipeline, and in the releases feature. The app discards any events that don’t contain issue keys relevant to your site.
To receive build and deployment data from Jenkins:
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The Jenkinsfiles describing your server’s pipelines must indicate when the Atlassian Jira Software Cloud plugin should send data to Jira
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Your team must include Jira issue keys (e.g. FUSE-123) in their commit messages and branch names so Jenkins for Jira knows the event data from Jenkins is relevant to your site
Here’s how to set up your Jenkinsfiles to send data to Jira:
To send build events without having to add specific instructions in your Jenkinsfiles:
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Go to Manage Jenkins > Atlassian Jira Software Cloud > Advanced settings (optional)
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Enable the checkbox “Sends builds automatically”
When you enable this, the plugin will send an "in progress" build event to Jira once a pipeline run has started and a "success" or "failure" build event once the pipeline has finished successfully or stopped due to an error.
If you also specify a regular expression for builds, the plugin will only send a build event to Jira once a build step with a matching name has been finished.
The regular expression ^build$ would match the build stage in the following Jenkinsfile, for example:
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('build') {
steps {
echo 'build done'
}
}
}
}
Whenever the pipeline in this Jenkinsfile runs, it will send build events to all configured Jira Cloud sites on start and finish of the build stage.
To send build events without having to add specific instructions in your Jenkinsfiles:
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Go to Manage Jenkins > Atlassian Jira Software Cloud > Advanced settings (optional)
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Enable the checkbox “Sends deployments automatically”.
When you enable this, the plugin will send an "in progress" deployment event to Jira once a build step with a name matching the specified regular expression has started, and a "success" or "failure" deployment event once that build step has finished.
For this to work, the deployment steps in your Jenkinsfile must contain the environment name in their name. The regular expression must contain the fragment (?<envName>.*) to match the environment name so that the plugin can extract the environment name from the build step names.
Let's look at an example Jenkinsfile:
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('deployments') {
parallel {
stage('deploy to stg') {
steps {
echo 'stg deployment done'
}
}
stage('deploy to prod') {
steps {
echo 'prod deployment done'
}
}
}
}
}
}
If the checkbox "Send deployments automatically" is enabled and the regular expression is set to ^deploy to (?<envName>.*)$, a run of the above Jenkinsfile will send "in progress" deployment events for the stg and prod environments to all configured Jira Cloud sites, followed by respective "success" deployment events once the build steps are finished.
If you want more control over when to send build events, you can use the jiraSendBuildInfo build step:
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('Build') {
steps {
echo 'Building...'
}
post {
always {
// previous to version 2.0.0 you must provide parameters to this command (see below)!
jiraSendBuildInfo()
}
}
}
}
}
This will send a "success" or "failure" build event to all configured Jira Cloud sites after the Build stage has finished successfully or with an error. The Jenkins plugin will automatically extract Jira issue keys from the branch name.
You can also specify a Jira site URL and instruct the plugin to only send build events to this Jira site (rather than to all configured Jira sites).
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('Build') {
steps {
echo 'Building...'
}
post {
always {
// previous to version 2.0.0 you must provide parameters to this command (see below)!
jiraSendBuildInfo()
}
}
}
}
}
If you want more control over when to send deployment events, you can use the jiraSendDeploymentInfo build step:
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('Deploy - Staging') {
when {
branch 'master'
}
steps {
echo 'Deploying to Staging from master...'
}
post {
always {
jiraSendDeploymentInfo environmentId: 'us-stg-1', environmentName: 'us-stg-1', environmentType: 'staging'
}
}
}
stage('Deploy - Production') {
when {
branch 'master'
}
steps {
echo 'Deploying to Production from master...'
}
post {
always {
jiraSendDeploymentInfo environmentId: 'us-prod-1', environmentName: 'us-prod-1', environmentType: 'production'
}
}
}
}
}
This will send a "success" or "failure" deployment event to all configured Jira sites at the end of the stages Deploy - Staging and Deploy - Production.
You must provide the parameters environmentId, environmentName, and environmentType. The environmentType must be one of the following: unmapped, development, testing, staging, production.
You can provide the parameter site to specify to send the deployment events to a single Jira site instead of all configured Jira sites.
When multiple Jira sites are connected to a Jenkins server, the site parameter is required for jiraSendDeploymentInfo with enableGating:true. More details about Deployment Gating can be found here.
You can also specify a branch with the branch parameter to define the branch from which to extract Jira issue keys to connect the deployments with.
You can mix build and deployments as in the Jenkinsfile below:
pipeline {
agent any
stages {
stage('Build') {
steps {
echo 'Building...'
}
post {
always {
jiraSendBuildInfo site: 'example.atlassian.net'
}
}
}
stage('Deploy - Staging') {
when {
branch 'master'
}
steps {
echo 'Deploying to Staging from master...'
}
post {
always {
jiraSendDeploymentInfo environmentId: 'us-stg-1', environmentName: 'us-stg-1', environmentType: 'staging'
}
}
}
stage('Deploy - Production') {
when {
branch 'master'
}
steps {
echo 'Deploying to Production from master...'
}
post {
always {
jiraSendDeploymentInfo environmentId: 'us-prod-1', environmentName: 'us-prod-1', environmentType: 'production'
}
}
}
}
}
Whenever you make a commit or merge a pull request in a connected source code management tool, like Bitbucket or GitHub, it should run the Jenkins pipeline you have specified for that repo. The development panel on your Jira issues will update to show any associated build and deployment information, as long as your team is including issue keys in their pull requests, commit messages, and branch names. Learn more about how to view development information for an issue.
If you’ve enabled the deployments feature in your Jira project, the Deployments page will show all your Jenkins deployments on a timeline. You can filter or search to view your deployments by environment, assignee, issue type, and more. And if your team is using releases and versions to organize your work, you’ll also find deployment information in the Releases feature.
Learn how to connect Jenkins to your Jira Service Management cloud project.