5 Things We Learned from Going Runs on Atlassian

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When Atlassian asked if Manage Custom Fields for Jira could join the Runs on Atlassian launch, we said yes, then immediately realized how many unknowns hid behind that small badge.

We rebuilt the app on Forge, passed the review, and shipped. These are the six surprises that mattered most to our team (and might matter to yours).

1 / Data-residency gymnastics are over

Pre-Forge we juggled twelve regional deployments so German data stayed in Germany, Australian data in Australia, and so on. With Forge and Runs on Atlassian, that balancing act now depends on where the Atlassian site itself is hosted.

Our founder Gert-Jan wrote the gory details in Making Sense of Data Residency (worth a skim if you enjoy old war stories). The short version: today the platform handles region pinning; we handle features.

2 / Authentication vanished, and we don’t miss it

“Who is this user?” used to be a dance between our backend and Atlassian’s APIs. On Forge, Jira already knows. No custom token flow, no stray 401s, no midnight log-diving.

“If someone opens the app, you already know they’re authenticated. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.” – Jannick

Less code, fewer bugs, happier devs.

3 / The badge forced a tidy-up we’d postponed for years

Migrating wasn’t just a port; it was a permission to delete legacy helpers, unify build scripts, and modernize libraries. Thijs called it “a natural breakpoint to rethink how we build apps.” The result: cleaner repos and a template we can reuse for future projects.

4 / Atlassian’s dev-relations team is weirdly available

During migration we fired off questions on Slack expecting answers such as “sometime this week.” Replies landed before coffee got cold, often from three different Atlassians who roped in a fourth. Not every platform gives you that kind of hotline. 

Shout out to Sean!

Lesson: ask early. They’ll probably join your thread, and maybe your call, if it moves the ecosystem forward.

5 / Enterprise procurement calls got shorter

Functionally, Manage Custom Fields looks identical: project admins still add, rename, or disable field values without pinging a Jira admin. But the moment a prospect’s security team asks, 'Where exactly is our data stored?' the badge does the talking: inside Atlassian, no egress. That alone cuts the call time in half.

Why the badge matters

Forge defines how the app runs. Runs on Atlassian tells customers the app stays inside Atlassian—no mystery servers, no surprise network hops. If your product already lives 90 percent inside Jira, finishing the last ten percent is worth it. If your value relies on heavy external services, the badge may not fit (yet).

Want the full story?

We wrote a long-form breakdown, with migration timeline, more quotes, and that data-residency deep dive. Grab a coffee and read it here.

And if your teams are still waiting on Jira admins to tweak dropdowns, give Manage Custom Fields a spin. Runs on Atlassian, zero detours, beige renamed to sand in seconds.

Questions? Drop them below, happy to share what we learned so your migration hurts less.