Can I create a Jira issue from a comment in GitHub?

[Scott Theus]

During code review, our architect adds comments to the code in GitHub to call out areas that we consider tech debt like spelling errors, layering, poor designs,  etc.  We are developing a process for dealing with tech debt as part of our overall distribution of work to the scrum teams, but we don't have a good way of identifying and tracking it in Jira.

Granted, creating tech debt stories for things like typos is getting into an extreme level of detail, and we're on a slippery slope towards micromanaging and losing agility because there are those in the org that feel every comment from the code review needs to be corrected, and there are also those within the org that everything anybody does needs to be documented in a Jira issue. 

So, here's my question: Is there a way to automate the creation of a user story in Jira from a comment on code in GitHub? This would allow the product owner a way to prioritize the tech debt stories and satisfy those in the org that want every little typo corrected, while showing leadership how much the attention to that level of detail is costing so they can make an educated decision on the path forward. 

Thanks!

[Patricia Francezi · Accepted solution]

Hi @Scott Theus 

I have a similar scenario with Bitbucket and may be the solution path is the same, although i dont know git hub integration very well to be sure. 

I saw this KB 

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/integrate-with-github/#Use-repo-activity-to-automatically-update-issues-in-company-managed-projects

Also, from bitbucket we can use webhooks to trigger incoming webhooks automation in jira. 

Every action in Bitbucket can trigger the webhook - like comment created, edited, pull request created etc.

I will use this incoming webhook with the JSON payload provided by Bitbucket to locate the issue associated and add the PR comments in the jira issue

Also get the Reviewers from PRs to fill reviewers fields in the issue and so on. 

May be GitHub also has webhooks to deal with this in the same way bitbucket does. 

THis is the kb related to incoming webhooks

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/working-with-incoming-webhook-data-in-automation-for-jira-1125878776.html

I hope this helps to get started with it!

[Scott Theus]

This is great, @Patricia Francezi , thank you! I'll read through it and share what I find. 

-Scott

[Patricia Francezi]

You are welcome. 

If my answer helped you on this path, please accept it :)

[Scott Theus]

Of course! I was a community leader a few years ago, so I totally get it :)

I had a conversation with out Cloud product team and they might arrange a POC for it if there is a need, but for now it's not going anywhere. 

Putting on my Agile Coach hat, in the end, automation would be cool, but it is more important that the team holds itself accountable for resolving their tech debt, they may need some team coaching to help them figure out the best way to do that.

[Syed Majid Hassan -Exalate-]

Hi Scott, 

This is Majid @ Exalate. 

The way I would do this would be an automatic issue creation in Github for the technical debt, and then have that issue synced over to Jira for further processing. You can then choose to keep the two issues in sync (preferred) or let them go their own way. This should be achievable by using an issue sync app such as Exalate. 

Please let me know your thoughts. 

Thanks

Majid

[Clark Everson]

Hi Scott,

I know in data center the answer is without a plug in from a third party vendor the answer is no. Looking at what I can find for cloud the answer seems to be the same.

If however you have a tool like zapier you could make this happen or alternatively look at the marketplace for a plugin and there are several (like excalate)

Best,
Clark