Moving Tasks in Kanban via Gitlab integrations

Question

Hi,

I've set up Gitlab integrations and verified that Gitlab is using the API key I've generated, but I don't seem to be able to move issues created in a Kanban using commit messages.

Eg. PROJECT-1 #done or Closes PROJECT-1 will not move cards from Backlog to Done. Is this feature only enabled on classic ticket-style Jira issues? Do I need to link the project in some other way to Gitlab or is the issue name enough?

Thanks

Andy Heinzer · Answer

Hi Iain,

Thanks for the additional info here.  I am not expecting this to work with Jira Cloud Next-gen projects, but from reviewing this it should be able to work with classic projects.

Looking at those links I am curious to how old these documented guides are from GitLab?  I am not sure when these were last checked for accuracy.  The thing that worries me is that Atlassian Cloud deprecated passwords for REST API authentication back last year.  And while you can still use Basic auth in Cloud with the API Token, if that token is just passed as if it was a password, you would still get an authentication error.  Instead the API token has to be base64 encoded into a string with the email address AND then passed as an authorization header (not sent as a username and password prompt).  Unfortunately, I don't know anything about how GitLab is sending this request.  It might be doing it correctly, but maybe not if the instructions were created before this deprecation notice.

Is there any way for you to look at logs from GitLab about this request?

Alternatively, have you seen this app by GitLab https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1221011/gitlab-for-jira?hosting=cloud&tab=overview ?

It appears that this add-on to Jira Cloud is a different way to integrate the two products, but I noticed that this page mentions...

Available for GitLab.com Silver and above.

In which case, if you're not using one of those supported plans form GitLab, this integration won't work as designed.

Are you using Self-managed GitLab? or GitLab Cloud here?

Andy

iain.blair · Answer

Hey Andy,

Thanks for helping out. I've tried both types of project and used the links below for information:

https://gitlab.com/help/user/project/integrations/jira_cloud_configuration.md

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/integrations/jira.html

It seems the connection is working since my API tokens in Jira show a "Last accessed" time, but tickets aren't closing.

-Iain

Andy Heinzer · Answer

Hi @iain.blair

I see that you're using Jira Cloud and trying to get issues in a board to transition via a commit message in Gitlab.  What is not clear to me here is whether this is a classic project or a next-gen project.  Both types can have Kanban boards, which is why I want to clarify that point as the answer will vary between them.

I get the feeling this is a next-gen Kanban project, given your description. In which case, you should know that this is not yet possible in next-gen, but we are tracking this request in JSWCLOUD-17721.  Should this feature come to next-gen projects, then I would expect that issue to be updated to reflect this.  I would recommend voting on that issue if this affects you.  It does help our development team to understand the number of users that want to see this feature in next-gen projects.

If this is not a next-gen project, but rather a classic project, then I'd be interested to learn more about how you have integrated Jira Cloud with Gitlab.  Natively, Jira Cloud doesn't support this service to integrate with, so I suspect there must be some add-on that is helping to manage that integration here.

Regards,

Andy