GitKraken Desktop

Overview

Git Integration for Jira

Better Control & Insights for Any Environment

Thousands of organizations around the world use Git Integration for Jira because it offers product and engineering managers better visibility, developers context-saving shortcuts, and DevOps more control.

Git Integration for Jira gives us the ‘needle in the haystack’ finder that we’ve always needed.

Git Integration for Jira helps our PMs retrieve data 94% faster than they could before.

Incredible - simply put! Installed and start using it after few minutes, zero sweat.

Uncover the true status of an issue

Jira issue status is an unreliable indicator of issue progress. Git Integration for Jira overlays development activity in issues and across projects to give planners rich insights into where work stands.

See development activity from Git on the issue view and across projects.

Dive into development activity

See branches, commits, pull requests, tags, deployments, and more from within the context of an Issue. Go even deeper to see which files were changed, view code diffs, and get a rollup of activity on the issue.
Full commit messages, authorship, files, and more are available on the Jira issue view

Spot issues missing updates

Nobody likes opening multiple browser tabs to dive into the details of every issue. The timeline view lets you quickly scan across epics, sprints, and projects to see when and how issues were updated.
Timeline view combines Jira and Git activity with a heatmap of days an issue was updated

Find and address project risks

Keeping projects on track requires constant attention and the ability to find and triage issues that aren’t getting the required attention. Git Integration for Jira gives you the tools to spot trends and address them before they become a larger issue.

Know when work isn’t progressing as planned and confirm its completed as expected.

Identify off-track sprints

The Backlog view is your home for monitoring sprint progress. View audits to see when issues are added or removed from a sprint, scan daily activity, and get alerted if a sprint is off track.
Backlog view shows sprints and their issues on the activity timeline so you can quickly scan progress

Compare branches and tags in Jira

Use the Repository Browser to compare branches or tags and see a diff of issues (or commits). Perfect for verifying work is completed as expected and then building release notes. Plus you can easily spot commits without a Jira issue key and then manually associate them to the appropriate issue(s).
View issue or commit details after you compare branches or tags in the repository browser

Get in and out of Jira

It’s no secret that developers want to avoid using Jira. Git Integration for Jira includes multiple quality of life improvements to get devs quickly out of Jira and back to coding.

Save time and stay in context as you create branches and link work.

Kick off dev workflows

Create branches and PRs right from the issue view, with personal settings to set your default repo and branch. Need to do a quick code review? View code diffs in-context within an issue.
Create branches and PRs within the Jira issue view

Get back to your preferred tools

Deep links to GitKraken Desktop, GitLens (VS Code), and Git web interfaces everywhere development information is shown in Jira gets you back to work without losing context.
Launch dev tools from anywhere Git development info is shown in the Jira interface.

Improve meeting efficiency

Meetings are often productivity killers. Git Integration for Jira gives development stakeholders access to data that enables them to reduce requests for ad-hoc status updates or unnecessary meetings. And when meetings are necessary, stakeholders come informed and ready to discuss the tasks at hand.

Get rid of uneccessary meetings and ad-hoc status updates with detailed data an automation.

Run meetings with rich data

A picture is worth a thousand words. Guide meetings (stand ups, retrospectives, etc.) with visuals that show what was worked on, what’s at risk, and what could be improved in the future.
Team view organizes Jira issues by assignee and plots Jira + Git activity on the timeline

Automate issue updates

Use DevOps automation trigger rules or smart commits to enable developers to keep the broader team informed without manually updating issues. Update issue status, comments, time logged, and more just by performing your normal dev workflow.
Automation rules can be triggered off commits, branches, PRs, builds, and deployments.

Integrate Your Way

Every organization has different requirements and environments, but most integration apps don’t account for those nuances. Git Integration for Jira offers unmatched flexibility and control of how your repositories integrate with Jira. This minimizes connection interruptions and ensures the app serves your teams. Plus it works with any Git hosting provider – cloud or self managed.

Integrate with any Git repository, self-hosted or in the cloud.

Take charge with app settings

All app settings are managed within Jira. You can enable/disable features, associate repositories to specific Jira projects, and set default branch naming templates (to enforce naming conventions). You can even give other Jira users the ability to manage the app to lighten the load for Jira Admins.
General settings page provides a full range of settings and preferences for the app and integrations.

Get visibility into integration status

Integrate with repos using OAuth, PATs, or Webhooks. Data-rich management screens let admins know what’s connected, their status, and allows for troubleshooting connection issues.
View connection status, logs, features and more for any integration you have set up.

Git Integration for Jira FAQs

Git Integration for Jira supports a wide variety of Git hosts from major cloud providers (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure, AWS) to self‑hosted/on‑prem servers (GitLab CE/EE, Bitbucket Server, Gerrit, Bonobo, Gitolite, etc.)

You can connect both cloud-hosted and self‑hosted repositories using either the full-featured Git service integration or, in more constrained environments, using webhook indexing.

When using the Git service integration (recommended), it supports automatic connection to both cloud-based and self-hosted Git platforms:

  • GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise Server
  • GitLab.com and GitLab CE/EE (self‑managed)
  • Azure DevOps Repos (VSTS) and Azure DevOps Server (TFS)
  • AWS CodeCommit
  • Bitbucket Cloud
  • Gerrit

Additionally, you can connect to any Git server accessible over SSH, HTTP/HTTPS, or the Git protocol.

Git Integration for Jira displays rich development context as long as your team references Jira issue keys in branch names, commit messages, and pull request (or merge request) titles. Once linked, you’ll be able to see the following information:

  1. Commits
  2. Branches
  3. Pull Requests (PRs) / Merge Requests (MRs)
  4. Tags
  5. Builds
  6. Deployments

This information can be viewed from:

  • Development Panel on Issues: The panel on each Jira work item aggregates commits, branches, pull requests, builds, and deployments—if the user has the View development tools permission. Data is accessible per issue via hovering or expanding details.
  • Issue view tabs like Git Commits and Git Roll Up: With Git Integration for Jira installed, new tabs like Git Commits and Git Roll Up appear in the issue view for browsing related Git activity. A Git Commits tab will also appear on the project view.
  • Jira Boards: On Jira boards, issue cards are decorated with icons indicating linked branches, pull requests, commits, or deployment status. Hovering over these icons reveals more detail.
  • Code and Release pages: Jira’s Code tab (showing recent PRs across a project) and Releases tab (tracking pull requests, builds, and deployments tied to a specific release) are supported once development tools are connected
  • Signals View: Available with Git Integration for Jira Advanced Edition, this view shows development activity on a timeline across Projects, Sprints, and Epics.
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By combining Smart Commits (via #transition) and DevOps automation triggers (commit, PR, branch events), you can fully automate state transitions in Jira.

Automating workflows based on DevOps triggers must be set up by a Jira Administrator. You’ll choose your trigger (e.g. commit made) and then an action (e.g. send a slack message, or transition issue). Once enabled, the workflow will fire automatically whenever triggered. A couple of examples:

  • Commit created → transition issue from To Do → In Progress when a commit referencing the issue key is pushed
  • Pull request merged → automatically move the issue to Done or a release-completed stage when the PR is merged and all related PRs are closed

Developers can also choose to perform these actions using Smart Commits. In a commit message, if you include both the issue key and a valid transition name, Jira can automatically transition the issue. For example “ABC‑101 implemented new feature #in‑progress”. Smart Commits can also be used to log time, leave comments on the issue, and more.

Signals is part of Git Integration for Jira Advanced eEdition. It’s an activity visualization tool that unifies Git and Jira data to show the true status of an issue and automatically flags project risks. By using Signals, you can spend less time figuring which issues need your attention, and more effectively get them back on track.

Signals includes multiple tools:

  • Backlog View: Track sprint progress and health, spot stalled issues based on activity
  • Team View: Understand contributor workload and priorities
  • General View: Free form filtering – see activity across specified projects, sprints, issue types, and more
  • Risk Alerts: Configure your risk definitions (e.g. pull request open for more than 3 days = High Risk), and you’ll see which issues fall into those risks in real-time. 

You can connect any repository to Jira Data Center using the Data Center version of the Git Integration for Jira app. The app supports GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, and Git repositories hosted in any other location. 

Organizations using Git Integration for Jira Data Center can easily migrate their repository integrations to Jira Cloud by using the Git Integration for Jira Cloud app.

Free connectors populate the development info panel on the Jira work item (issue) view, showing a commit, branch, or pull request occurred. While this does provide some context into what’s going on with development, the ability for users to effectively consume and utilize this data in a meaningful way is extremely limited. In practice, users have to open 30+ individual issues in a sprint and then create a mental model of what’s occurring with development. 

Git Integration for Jira is not just an integration app. It’s an integration app plus a project management and project risk mitigation tool rolled into one. It provides teams with a more complete – activity-based – picture of what’s going on. This helps to quickly identify work that needs attention or is at-risk, without having to dig into every issue one at a time. Sprint health and required action items can be determined in minutes, instead of hours.

Additionally, Git Integration for Jira works with every Git hosting provider – both cloud and self-managed. And it includes a comprehensive set of authentication, control, and customization options (e.g. default branch naming conventions, associating repositories with specific jira projects) that are absent in the free options.

See how Git Integration for Jira compares to GitHub for Jira and GitLab for Jira, the more limited free alternatives.

Get started for free

Try Git Integration for Jira for Free

Git Integration for Jira includes a free 30-day trial. Available for Jira Cloud and Data Center. Try it risk free!