Trigger an automation when any member of a group is @mentioned in a comment

Laura Bennett

Hey everyone 👋

I'm setting up a global automation that reacts whenever one of our AI agent accounts is @mentioned in a comment.

For some context, these are not Rovo agents or integrated third-party agents, but rather custom autonomous AI agents that have their own identity and interact with Atlassian tools independently via their own service account. These AI agent accounts sit in a dedicated group. And we're currently adding several new ones every month.

So far the global automation rule looks like this:

triggers on “Comment created”
smart value condition: {{comment.body}} contains regular expression \[~accountid:(id1|id2|id3)\], where id1|id2|id3 would list the account IDs.

The problem is, this isn't very scalable, every new agent account requires manually adding the account id to the list, and because this would be a global rule, only Jira admins can edit it, and the people who set up the agent accounts aren’t admins.

Is there a cleaner way of doing this?

Is there a way to checking the mentioned account against the group directly? Or maybe a lookup table pattern we could use?

I've been looking into using the Automation Rule Management API to update the regex automatically whenever a new account is created, which seems possible, but feels heavy for something that sounds somewhat simple.

I'm also aware this rule will trigger on every comment made across our Jira site, and with the new usage-based pricing model it could add up! If there’s a better solution that keeps cost low, or a reason this approach is even more expensive than it looks, I’d love to hear that too. Thanks!

Sarah Marenchino | Devoteam

Hi Laura,
I work at Devoteam France.

You could use the group membership dynamically, without maintaining account IDs in the rule or updating it through the Automation Rule Management API.

Here is how I would configure it.

1. Trigger: Comment created

Keep your existing trigger. Start with a test project before enabling the global scope.

2. Condition: check whether the comment contains a mention

Add a Smart values condition:

• First value: {{comment.body}}
• Condition: contains regular expression
• Regular expression:

\[~accountid:([^\]]+)\]

This checks for any account mention, without listing individual account IDs.

3. Extract and store the mentioned account IDs

Add Create variable:

• Variable name: mentionedAccountIds
• Smart value:

{{comment.body.match("\[~accountid:([^\]]+)\]").distinct.join(",")}}

The capturing group extracts the account ID between [~accountid: and ]. match() can return multiple matches, and distinct removes duplicates.

For example:

Hello [~accountid:abc123] and [~accountid:557058:xyz789]

Produces:

abc123,557058:xyz789

Create variable stores text, so we explicitly join the IDs with commas. We will split that text back into a list when branching.

References: Text smart values and List smart values.

4. Retrieve the group members

Add Send web request:

• Method: GET
• URL:

https://YOUR-SITE.atlassian.net/rest/api/3/group/member?groupId=YOUR-GROUP-ID&includeInactiveUsers=false&startAt=0&maxResults=100

• Request body: empty.
• Header: Accept: application/json.
• Configure authenticated access using credentials permitted to read group membership.
• Enable Delay execution of subsequent rule actions until we've received a response for this web request.

For Basic authentication with a conventional API token, the Authorization header is Basic <base64(email:api_token)>. Mark that header as Hidden.

The authenticated account needs Browse users and groups, or Administer Jira. The rule actor’s permissions do not automatically authenticate the HTTP request.

5. Validate the response before using it

Add two Smart values conditions:

First value	Condition	Second value
{{webResponse.status}}	equals	200
{{webResponse.body.isLast}}	equals	true

The second check matters: maxResults=100 requests a page size, not a guarantee that the whole group is returned.

This version requires the group to fit in one response. If isLast is false, it stops: you must retrieve subsequent pages using nextPage before treating the membership list as complete.

Reference: Get users from group.

6. Store the group members’ IDs

Add Create variable:

• Variable name: agentGroupAccountIds
• Smart value:

,{{webResponse.body.values.accountId.join(",")}},

The surrounding commas will let us compare whole IDs rather than partial matches.

7. Branch over the mentioned accounts

Add Advanced branching:

• Smart value:

{{mentionedAccountIds.split(",")}}

• Variable name: mentionedAccountId

Inside that branch, add a Smart values condition:

• First value:

{{agentGroupAccountIds}}

• Condition: contains
• Second value:

,{{mentionedAccountId}},

This checks whether the current mentioned account is a member of your agent group.

8. Add your action inside the branch

Place the action immediately after that condition.

For the initial test, use Log action:

Agent mention matched: accountId={{mentionedAccountId}}, issue={{issue.key}}, commentId={{comment.id}}

Once verified, replace it with the action that invokes your agent. {{mentionedAccountId}} identifies which agent to invoke.

This runs once per distinct matching agent. If two different agents are mentioned, both are processed. If the same agent is mentioned twice, it is processed once. Branch execution order should not be relied upon.

References: Automation actions and Automation branches.

Before enabling it globally, test:

• No mention: stops before the API request.
• A mentioned user outside the group: no agent action.
• A mentioned group member: one action.
• Two different group members: one action for each.
• The same member mentioned twice: one action.
• A newly added group member: works without editing the rule.
• An API error or incomplete membership response: does not proceed with the agent action.

On usage, the initial trigger and condition still consume steps under the new model, even when no mention is found. This approach removes manual maintenance, but the API call and subsequent processing also consume steps. Atlassian’s usage calculation.

I haven’t run this exact configuration end to end, so I would validate the extraction and audit log output in the test project first.

Sarah Marenchino | Devoteam