Triggering Rovo agents through Forge

Question

Hello Folks, Hope we're all learning and exploring to make use of Rovo and Forge from our respective implementations.

We're having some good idea on Rovo agents - using and customizing existing agents, creating new agents and leveraging them within our ecosystem.

Now we're taking it to the next step and started exploring the Forge apps. One of the requirement we're trying to explore is how to trigger, initiate a Rovo agent through Forge app.

* Is there any direct approach, or alternative workarounds/solutions to achieve this?

* Any known limitations, challenges with this approach?

* Or, this approach itself is not feasible, possible?

Looking forward to hear your thoughts, pointers regarding this.

Sami Shaik · Answer

One clarification on top of Arek's links, because the two references solve different problems and they are easy to conflate.

ECO-629 is exactly the right ticket to watch and vote for: it tracks the missing "trigger a Rovo Agent from a Forge function" capability, the same gap my answer flagged, so thank you Arek for surfacing the tracking link.

The Forge LLMs API is a different tool though: it gives your Forge function direct model access inside the Forge runtime, which is the right answer when your app needs AI in its own logic, but it does not invoke your configured Rovo agent, its knowledge sources, or its actions. So the practical split today stays: Automation to invoke the agent for event-driven needs, the LLMs API when the app needs its own intelligence, and ECO-629 for the direct Forge-to-agent call we are all waiting for. Check the current status on the pages Arek linked before building against either, since as he says, this area is moving.

Arkadiusz Wroblewski · Answer

Hello @Leela VenkataSatish Kolla

Atlassian Tracking that under [ECO-629] As an app developer, I want to trigger a Rovo Agent from a Forge function - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

Hm, Depending on Concept, you can have another options.

https://developer.atlassian.com/platform/forge/apis-reference/ui-api-bridge/rovo/

https://developer.atlassian.com/platform/forge/runtime-reference/forge-llms-api/

Keep your eyes on this; capabilities are changing in Lightspeed.

Best,

Arek🤠

Sami Shaik · Answer

Hello @Leela VenkataSatish Kolla ,

Great question, and it has a precise answer as of today, because "trigger a Rovo agent from Forge" means one of three different things, and Forge supports each differently.

1. Open a conversation with an agent from your app UI (supported): the Forge bridge rovo API. From any Jira or Confluence Forge module (plus the JSM organization panel and queue page), rovo.open() opens the Rovo chat sidebar and starts a conversation with a specified agent, with a pre-filled prompt built from your app's data. This is the "trigger" that exists: user-initiated, contextual, and the agent's answer appears in chat. Great for "analyse this thing" buttons; not a background call.

2. Ship your own agent, with actions, inside your app (supported): the rovo:agent and action modules. Your Forge app declares an agent (prompt, conversation starters) and actions implemented as Forge functions, so the agent can call your APIs and run your code. Two things to know: an app's actions only register if the app also bundles a rovo:agent, and if you add the read:chat:rovo scope, your actions become usable by customer-built agents too, which is often the more useful direction. Users then invoke the agent through Chat, or through Automation, which can call an agent asynchronously on events and schedules and pass its response to later rule steps via smart values (described on the rovo:agent page). That automation path is the closest thing to a headless trigger today, and it works well. The hello world tutorial gets you a working agent plus action in under an hour.

3. Bring an external agent into Jira as a colleague (EAP): rovo:agentConnector. For remotely hosted agents speaking the A2A protocol; users can assign work items to it and mention it. Early access, not for production yet, but it is where the platform is heading.

And the honest gap: there is no supported "call an agent from a Forge function and get a structured response back" API. Nothing like requestRovo(agentName, prompt) exists today; the developer community has been asking for exactly this since early 2025, and a March 2026 thread confirms it is still open. Anyone offering a "workaround" that scrapes chat or drives the UI is building on sand.

Limitations worth planning around: app-based agents only see the workspace the app is installed in; automation-invoked agents run asynchronously (design for eventual, not immediate); and the rovo bridge is UI-only, so it cannot fire from a scheduled or backend function.

Practical recommendation: for background or event-driven needs, put your logic in an action and let Automation invoke the agent; for in-context help, use the bridge; and add your voice to the developer community thread for the missing headless API, it deserves the noise.