Ben Spillane Community Champion

The last article named a comment format in passing: marker on line 1, byline on line 2, six required sections below (six for readiness; the count varies by phase). It moved on because all it needed from the format was that an auditor can write things an author can't. This article is about the format itself. Why it's fixed,…

Hi, I'm working on a threat and risk assessment for work. The assessment focuses heavily on Rovo and Atlassian AI features, Rovo MCP Server and also 3P MCP connectors as well as marketplace apps. The question I can't get a definitive answer to is this: Can we enforce data security policies that map data classification…

The last article's sharpest line was a boundary: The readiness reviewer may only record what the sources already say; the analyst may additionally choose among what the sources permit; neither may invent what the sources don't cover. Three authorities, one line. The tiers keep them apart. (Missed Part 5? The tiers are…

Anyone who has built a synchronised Christmas light show knows the truth. It isn't just chucking a few LEDs on the roof. It’s an absolute logistical beast. We’re talking 3D modelling, custom pixel clips, and complex power distribution. With a hard deadline creeping up fast, relying on a mental to-do list is a bit of a…

The last article named four questions any skill file has to answer to actually be a role. The second of them — what is my authority? — is the one this article is about, because it turns out to be the hardest of the four to answer well, and the model that answers it is the single most reusable idea in this project's…

The last article ended on a dispatch. The intake gate reads the item's status, decides what work is legitimate, and — if the request is legitimate — hands the invocation off to a phase-specific skill: refinement, readiness evaluation, development, review. Each of those skills is the subject of this article — specifically,…

The last article ended on a claim: in an agentic workflow, when the prompt and the status disagree, the status wins and the agent stops. This one is about why. It's the single most counter-intuitive rule in the series. Modern agents feel most competent when they're following a rich, specific prompt — that's when they…

The last article argued for a rule: when the prompt and the status disagree, the status wins and the agent stops. That's the principle. This one is about the mechanism — because a principle only holds if it can be enforced on every path an agent can be reached on, and Jira offers several paths. All of them can be triggered…

If you've built a Jira board that works, the first instinct on adding an agent to your team is a reasonable one: the process is fine, just point the agent at the same columns and let it get on with it. Refinement, ready for dev, in progress, in review, done. Same board, same rules. What could go wrong? Rather a lot, as it…

The problem with "why did my issue do that?" Picture this: a team member transitions an issue to "In Review." Three things happen automatically. A sub-task gets created. An email goes out. A linked issue changes status. Nobody told them any of this would happen — there's no tooltip, no notification, no breadcrumb. Just...…

The 150% Commitment: Going All-In Because I Can't Help It Most people see Atlassian certifications as a sensible professional milestone, a box to tick to keep the career moving. That’s a perfectly valid way to play it, but my brain doesn't really do "sensible." I’ve never been one for half-measures; if I’m going to do…

Moving a Jira instance can be a right royal pain in the neck. While Atlassian’s built-in tooling handles native data and configurations quite well, things get trickier when it comes to Marketplace apps and third-party data. The current landscape of cloud-to-cloud migration and Atlassian organisation restructuring is…