Why does Jira Automation *PR merged* only detect task IDs in title but not in nested commit messages

[Haitham Josef Elfaham]

When I create a merge request from a feature branch where the underlying commit contains a task ID (see screenshot: LPBIT-3036 is the task ID in jira), it does not get detected by the automation, keeping in mind that the MR title is UAT (since we are merging UAT environment to Prod environment). The automation only gets triggered if the title contains the id, i.e., if instead of UAT it has LPBIT-3036  then it would work. The expectation here is to detect in a recursive manner all commit message and their contained ID so it can invoke the action accordingly. Keep in mind this used to work until end of March 2026.

[Tomislav Tobijas]

Hi @Haitham Josef Elfaham ,

You're saying this used to work?
For commits, the commit message does need to contain work item key. On the other hand, for pull requests, PR title needs to have work item key for automation to be triggered. This is how Jira's triggers prioritize PR's metadata over the individual commit history for rule execution. At least that's how we did it so far 👀

A couple of things you could probably do:

• Use 'Commit created' trigger - If you need to trigger actions based on keys found specifically in commit messages
• Adjust the PR title or branch name
• I think there's 'Smart Commit' feature/format that you could also use (e.g., LPBIT-3036 #comment message)

You could also check integration health. Are you using native integration or some third-party solution?

Cheers,
Tobi