How to Programmatically Sync a Slack Thread with a Jira Ticket

Question

I’m looking for a way to programmatically link a Slack thread with a Jira ticket so that messages between the two stay synchronized bidirectionally.

Specifically, I need:

1. An API or integration method that allows a Slack thread to be attached to a Jira issue.

2. Real-time or near real-time syncing of messages/comments from Slack to Jira and vice versa.

3. Guidance on any limitations or best practices for implementing this kind of sync.

Is there an official API or recommended approach to achieve this? Any documentation or examples would be very helpful.

Viktar Martavitski · Answer

Hi @Shameem Shah_ln5s6k,

Building this yourself against the Slack + Jira APIs is doable but the upkeep (edits, deletes, attachments, rate limits, echo loops) is where it gets painful. Disclosure: I work on Threadmaker (https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/2757045414/threadmaker-for-jira-and-slack). We do exactly this as an app: each Slack reply in the mapped thread becomes a Jira comment and each Jira comment posts back, in near real time, with attachments/images and @mentions carried both ways . It's one Jira issue ↔ one Slack thread, with a live status header on the thread. Happy to share whether it covers your case before you build anything.

Svetlin · Answer

@Shameem Shah , just out of curiosity, what is your use-case for a custom one when that's already solved by the existing one? Sounds like something exciting...

btw, I've given you credit for that comment here, Sham, thank you... https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-questions/Any-way-to-automatically-sync-Slack-thread-to-Jira-issue/qaa-p/3252107#M1183443

Alex Koxaras -Relational- · Answer

Hi @Shameem Shah

This website https://developer.atlassian.com/ has all the available APIs for Jira and they are going to help you with your quest. However keep in mind that Jira has already a built in integration with Slack which you can use to sync (one way) many things, comments among them:

And of course you may want to take a loot at the marketplace as well.

Let me know if the above helps.

Alex