We just launched BluBees on the Marketplace: here's what we built and what we learned

[Soumya Menon]

 Hi App Central,

We just launched BluBees on the Atlassian Marketplace and wanted to introduce ourselves to the community here.

What we built

BluBees is an AI-powered workflow automation platform built natively on Atlassian Forge, which means it lives inside Jira, not beside it. No middleware, no external servers, no data leaving the Atlassian cloud boundary.

The core idea: most Jira teams have a toolstack that extends well beyond Jira, such as Salesforce, GitLab, Slack, Jenkins, TestRay, Confluence, Zendesk, and more. Getting those tools to talk to each other, and to Jira, has traditionally meant custom integrations, Zapier flows, or a lot of manual work. BluBees automates that layer from inside Jira using three building blocks:

• Flows: a visual drag-and-drop workflow builder inside Jira
• Steps: pre-built actions across 20+ connected apps
• Connectors: pre-built integrations across CRM, DevOps, testing, communication, and service tools, and if we don't have the connector you need, you can build your own custom connector directly within BluBees (coming by mid year)
• AI Agents: autonomous agents with Tool Skills that can read context, make decisions, and take actions across your toolstack

We also have native MCP Tool Support and Atlassian Rovo Agent integration, so BluBees Agents can work alongside Rovo Agents in a single workflow.

Above is an Intelligent Release Pipeline connecting Salesforce → Jira → AI Agents → GitLab → Slack → Confluence, all orchestrated from one BluBees Flow inside Jira.

Why we built on Forge

Honestly, it was the most important product decision we made. The data protection story,  everything stays within the Atlassian cloud boundary, no external LLM calls unless explicitly configured, has been a genuine differentiator with enterprise and government customers. We couldn't have told that story if we'd built it outside the platform.

The Forge LLMs API in particular has been a game changer for us; it's what powers our AI Agents natively inside Jira without any data leaving the tenant.

If you're already deep in Jira, this is your chance to make it your entire SDLC universe.

What we learned

A few honest things from the build and launch process:

• The Forge runtime has constraints that trip you up early; budget time to understand them before you can work within them comfortably. Forge is still young, with a lot of energy and growth ahead of it, and it rewards patience as the platform matures. We're excited to grow with it.
• The Marketplace review process takes longer than you expect; build in buffer
• Your Marketplace listing copy is your most important marketing asset in the ecosystem; we underestimated it and course-corrected
• The Community here was invaluable during the build; we owe a lot to threads we found when documentation wasn't enough

What we're looking for

We'd love to connect with other Forge app builders, especially anyone working on automation, AI, or cross-tool integration use cases. And if you're a Jira team dealing with the kind of cross-tool workflow pain we're solving, we'd genuinely love to hear how you're handling it today.

BluBees is free to install; NuBee tier available at no cost. Search BluBees on the Marketplace or visit blubees.ai.

Happy to answer any questions here.