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Jira Global Automation Message Logging and Debugging

Filipe Paixao De Lima

I am currently working on automating various processes in Jira and have encountered a challenge that I believe many of you might have faced as well. On almost every automation, I would like to log more meaningful messages, such as status codes and messages, whether they indicate an error or success. This would greatly help in debugging and understanding each step of the automation.

This will help in identifying where things might be going wrong or confirming that everything is working as expected as well as serving as a documentation of the rule.

Alas, With more detailed logs, I aim to make the debugging process more efficient. Understanding the exact point of failure or success in the automation will save a lot of time and effort.

So, here are my question:

Has anyone implemented a similar logging mechanism in their Jira automations?
Are there any best practices or tools that you would recommend for achieving this?
How can I configure Jira to log these detailed messages for each step of the automation?

Any insights, examples, or resources you could share would be immensely helpful. Thank you in advance for your assistance!

Best regards,
Filipe De Lima

Accepted answers

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Filipe Paixao De Lima

Long ago...I wrote this suggestion to improve logging, requesting optional verbose information logging: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-36

It is finally in progress, although it is unclear what Atlassian is implementing as they have re-worded my original suggestion multiple times and changed my intent. (sigh)

Until we see what they are building, you may try:

Use the Log action to write progress / diagnostic information to the log. These entries show up as soon as you expand the log details.
When the rule is too long to add logging, or to save rule steps, try adding the {{#debug}}your expression{{/}} in some rule steps. These entries only appear when you expand each one in the log.
Pause to consider your rule structure and consider how to better see problems. For examples:
- With the Send Web Request action, one could disable the option to halt processing on errors and instead log the error codes and response details
- With complicated operations, split them down to divide-and-conquer using Create Variable, logging the intermediate results
- Add conditions to validate ALL assumptions so a rule will at least do-no-harm if something goes sideways
Learn about the automation service limits and feature changes, such as automated action retry, to avoid surprises

Kind regards,
Bill

All comments

Victor Law - Ricksoft

Hi @Filipe Paixao De Lima

Log action + audit log is my go-to method to track and trace what went wrong in Jira Automation:

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/jira-automation-actions/#Log-action

Log action can capture the status code or return bodies from APIs or smart values.

Thank you.

Filipe Paixao De Lima

Thank you, Victor!

Is that the only option, though? I actually know it but I don't get much value from it.

One example: within a certain work item you can create a new work item using a manual trigger on it. Once it failed for me and all I got was this error message:

```Unable to create work item: An error occurred (customfield_11883)```

Is there a way to expand this error using the Log action? To know what exactly went wrong?

Bill Sheboy

Hi @Filipe Paixao De Lima

Long ago...I wrote this suggestion to improve logging, requesting optional verbose information logging: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/AUTO-36

It is finally in progress, although it is unclear what Atlassian is implementing as they have re-worded my original suggestion multiple times and changed my intent. (sigh)

Until we see what they are building, you may try:

Use the Log action to write progress / diagnostic information to the log. These entries show up as soon as you expand the log details.
When the rule is too long to add logging, or to save rule steps, try adding the {{#debug}}your expression{{/}} in some rule steps. These entries only appear when you expand each one in the log.
Pause to consider your rule structure and consider how to better see problems. For examples:
- With the Send Web Request action, one could disable the option to halt processing on errors and instead log the error codes and response details
- With complicated operations, split them down to divide-and-conquer using Create Variable, logging the intermediate results
- Add conditions to validate ALL assumptions so a rule will at least do-no-harm if something goes sideways
Learn about the automation service limits and feature changes, such as automated action retry, to avoid surprises

Kind regards,
Bill

Filipe Paixao De Lima

Thank you Bill! Let's hope they add some good functionally there

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