Build custom Forge apps in Rovo Studio - no code required!

[#1]

Hello Atlassian Community

In our recent post, we shared the news that the new, unified AI building experience in Rovo Studio is now in open beta . If you have not checked it out yet, we would encourage you to start there for an overview of everything included and how to opt in.

📢 Join the beta to opt in now, or let us handle it automatically from May 2026.

In this post, we want to go deeper on one of the most exciting parts of the new Studio experience: the ability to build custom Forge apps using nothing but natural language prompts.

What is a Forge app?

A Forge app is a custom plugin you can build for Atlassian products like Jira, Jira Service Management, or Confluence without running your own servers. Think of Atlassian products as your phone and Forge apps as the apps you install on it, except in this case you are also creating the apps. Forge apps are best suited for adding a specific feature or experience directly inside an Atlassian product, like a new macro in Confluence or a custom panel in Jira.

Here are some examples of what you could build:

• A Confluence macro that displays a progress bar to communicate informal page progress.

• A tracker that shows which pages in a Confluence space need updating, sorted by priority.

• A dashboard in Jira that visualises dependencies and risks across work items.

• A Confluence macro that lets you embed quiz questions into pages.

The key thing to know is that you do not need to write any code to build these. You just describe what you want to Rovo, and it handles the rest. For a more detailed overview of the types of apps you can build, see What are apps in Studio? and for a more technical look at Forge see The Forge platform.

Let's build one together

You might remember from our previous post that we included some ready-to-use example prompts. Let's pick one up and walk through the full process of going from prompt to published app.

We will use this example, which builds a Confluence macro for tracking progress on a page:

"I'd like to easily communicate informal progress in Confluence. Create a macro that displays a progress bar using ten 20×20px squares. Segments are blue if completed, otherwise white with a blue border. They are clickable to set progress. On hover, change the square's colour and show the progress percentage. Default to 70%." 

Step 1: Describe your problem

Head to studio.atlassian.com (or choose Studio in the app switcher) and type your prompt into the prompt box. If you already know you want to build a Forge app, it helps to say so in your prompt. Otherwise, Studio might recommend other solutions like an automation or an agent (which could also be a great fit depending on what you are trying to achieve).

Your prompt does not need to be as detailed as the one above. You can start broad and use Rovo to refine the idea through conversation. It will ask follow-up questions to clarify your requirements if needed. For tips on writing effective prompts, see Create with Rovo in Studio.

Step 2: Review the plan

Once you submit, Rovo will create a high-level plan describing what it intends to build. This is the time to iterate. It is much easier to make changes at this stage than after the app has been built. If something is not quite right, keep the conversation going until you are happy with the direction.

If you want to go further before building, you can click Review app specs to see a detailed technical specification. This is not necessary if you are not familiar with Forge, but it is there if you want it.

Step 3: Build and assign a developer space

When you are ready, click Build app. Building can take some time depending on the complexity of the app (this example took about 14 minutes), so it is a good time to keep other work open so you can jump back and forth.

Shortly after building starts, you will be prompted to select a developer space. A developer space is your team's shared space for building, managing, and billing Forge apps. It brings together your apps, team members, and billing access in one place. You can create a new developer space directly in Studio or select an existing one from the Developer Console.

Step 4: Preview and iterate

When the build is finished, Studio will show you a preview of your app. Note that the preview uses mock data, so nothing in it is live or linked to real content. This is purely for you to check the look and feel and decide if you want to make changes.

For example, you might notice the progress squares are not behaving exactly as you described, or you want to tweak the default percentage, look and feel, or add extra features. Just tell Rovo what to change and it will adjust. Keep iterating until you are happy before moving on. You can always come back to make changes later, but it is easier to get it right now.

Step 5: Publish to a site

Once you are satisfied, click Publish app. You will be asked to choose a site and an environment to publish to.

One important thing to note: you must be a site admin on the target site to publish an app to it. This is why publishing to a developer site is the recommended while you test app building. A developer site is a free Atlassian Cloud site you can create at go.atlassian.com/cloud-dev, and since you will be an admin of it by default, you can publish and test without needing to request permissions on a production site.

A quick note on environments: Forge supports three environments for your app: Development, Staging, and Production. We recommend starting with Development so you can test your app safely before rolling it out more broadly. You can read more about how environments work in the Forge documentation.

For full details on the publishing process, see Publish your app.

Step 6: Find and test your app

After publishing, Rovo will confirm the app was published successfully and link you to the site. From there, navigate to the relevant product, in our case Confluence, and find your app.

For a Confluence macro like the one we just built, you will find it by creating a new page and typing the macro command (this case /progress bar). Insert the macro and you should be able to interact with it as designed, clicking the squares to set progress and seeing the hover behaviour in action.

A quick tip: if you cannot find your app, go back to Rovo Studio and ask it for help. Something like "I can't find the app, can you give me step-by-step directions?" works well.

Step 7: Keep iterating after publish

Your app is not locked in after publishing. Head back to Studio, go to Apps, click on the app you installed, and select Edit. You can continue iterating with Rovo and republish when you are done. For more on this, see Edit or update an app.

Tips for getting the best results

• Be specific in your prompts - Instead of saying "help me with Confluence", try something like "create a macro that tracks which pages in a space haven't been updated in over 30 days".

• Think in outcomes, not tasks - Focus on what you want to achieve rather than the individual steps you think are needed.

• Give feedback if it is not right - Tell Rovo what is off and it will adjust (and let us know what you think if Rovo’s responses by clicking the thumbs up or thumbs down!).

We want to hear from you

If you have not tried the new Studio experience yet, now is a great time to get started. You can join the open beta today by heading to admin.atlassian.com > Apps > Atlassian Apps and looking for the Rovo Studio beta invitation banner. Full details on opting in can be found in our previous post.

If you would prefer to wait, no action is needed. The new Studio experience will be rolled out automatically from early May 2026.

Once you get started, we want to hear about it!

• Feature feedback or ideas? - Use the in-product feedback in Studio, it goes directly to the team.

• General questions? - Drop them in the comments below, we’ll be watching this thread closely.

• Found a bug or an issue? - Please report it in the comments as well, we’ll triage and follow up.

We can't wait to see what you build.

— Rovo Studio team

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Useful resources

• What are apps in Studio? - an overview of app types and capabilities.

• Create with Rovo in Studio - detailed guidance on prompting and building.

• The Forge platform - a detailed look at the Forge platform.

• Developer Spaces introduction - what developer spaces and how they work.

• Publish your app - publishing and sharing your app.

• Edit or update an app - iterating after publishing.

• Environments and versions - understanding Development, Staging, and Production environments.

[Franziska Kress]

Hey, the new functionality sounds interesting.

We enabled the beta feature, but the whole studio app stopped to work.
It only displays "Not found"
The error we see in the network is: 

{
        "type": "about:blank",
        "title": "Forbidden",
        "status": 403,
        "detail": "Workspace is not opted in to Studio V2"
    }

 How can we resolve it?

[Justin King]

Hi @Franziska Kress

Sorry about this. The team is looking into your issue now. I see that they have requested some extra info from you on the ticket you logged. We'll get it sorted!

[Alexander Weickmann]

Hi there,

we started building our first app with Rovo studio. It was trying for 20 minutes - "Building your application ...". Then it gave up, saying:

The build environment is consistently timing out, which points to a platform-level issue rather than anything wrong with the app design. Here are a few things to try:
-  Wait a few minutes and then click "Build app" again — transient infrastructure issues often resolve on their own.
- Try refreshing the page and retrying the build from this conversation.
- If the issue persists, it may be worth checking the Atlassian Developer status page for any ongoing incidents.
When you're ready to retry, just say "Build app" and Rovo will pick up right where things left off.

Second attempt, still same error. It seems there is some underlying issue.