JiraPlay

Your team's Jira issues as a game. Every teammate is a hero with a level, an XP bar, a streak and hearts that drop for overdue work. The sprint is a boss fight: every finished issue is a hit.

It runs two ways from the same code: as a VS Code extension (each person signs in with their own Jira account) or as a local web app.

Made for fun. JiraPlay is a playful side project, not a replacement for Jira. It covers a small set of everyday actions (viewing issues, marking them done, changing status, reassigning, commenting and creating simple issues) and leaves everything else to Jira itself. XP, levels, streaks and achievements are just for fun: they aren't a measure of anyone's work, and they're only kept on your computer.

What's in the game

• Sprint boss. The boss's HP is the XP of the sprint's open work. It gets enraged late in the sprint with most of its HP left, and it's defeated when everything is done.
• XP that sticks. XP is 10 × story points per finished issue (10 without points). JiraPlay keeps a ledger of finished work, so XP stays after issues leave the board, and goes away if an issue is reopened. Level is floor(sqrt(XP / 10)) + 1.
• Standings. The party's leaderboard for the current sprint.
• Streaks. Days in a row with finished work. Weekends without work don't break a streak.
• Achievements. Eleven badges, from First Blood to Legend, earned only from finished work.
• Earned classes. After three finished issues, a hero's class follows what they actually do: squash bugs and you're the Rogue, take on epics and you're the Oracle.
• Level-ups take over the screen with confetti and a shake (turned off when your system asks for reduced motion).
• Eight themes: Arcade, Space Fleet, Heist City, Wizard School, Neon Cyber, Block World, Grand Prix and Daylight, a light theme. Each changes colours, fonts, wording, classes, the boss and the sound.

Working with issues

• Hero pages show a teammate's issues in the same columns as your Jira board. Step through heroes with ◀ ▶ or the ← → keys; Esc goes back.
• Mark done with an issue's icon. The change shows immediately and waits 5 seconds with Undo (or ⌘/Ctrl+Z) before it's sent to Jira, since Jira can't take it back. JiraPlay picks the Done transition that needs no extra fields, prefers your board's last column, then a status called Done.
• Change status from an issue's Status menu, which lists the moves your workflow allows.
• Reassign by dragging an issue onto a hero, or with the Assign menu inside the issue (works with the keyboard and screen readers).
• Comments: read the latest 50 and add your own (⌘/Ctrl+Enter posts).
• Your profile (your avatar, top right): your level, achievements and a searchable list of your issues on the board or across all of Jira.
• New issue with "+ New issue" (needs a project key). It only stays on the board if it matches your JQL.

If a change fails, the board puts the issue back and tells you why. Boards over 1,000 issues show the first 1,000 and say so.

VS Code extension

Install

npm install
npm run package      # creates jiraplay-<version>.vsix

Then in VS Code: Extensions view → … menu → Install from VSIX… and pick the file.

Use

The first start opens the board with a Connect Jira guide, and Help → Get Started has a JiraPlay walkthrough. You need:

1. Your Jira site (e.g. your-team.atlassian.net) and the email you log into Jira with.
2. An API token: click Create API token (not "with scopes").
3. Your project key (the ABC in ABC-123) and whether your team uses sprints, or your own JQL.

JiraPlay checks the login and the JQL with Jira before saving anything.

• The JiraPlay sidebar shows your level, streak, open issues (click one to open it on the board), the sprint boss and the standings.
• The status bar shows ⚔ LVL 3 · 7 open · 🔥4.
• JiraPlay: Sign in to Jira reopens the guide; JiraPlay: Sign out of Jira removes your token.
• An open board comes back after VS Code restarts.

Without signing in, the board shows demo data.

Settings (Settings → JiraPlay)

Web app

npm install
npm run dev        # http://localhost:5173

With no .env it starts on demo data and opens the same Connect Jira guide, which saves your details to .env in this folder. You can also copy .env.example to .env and fill it in by hand. XP history is kept in .jiraplay-ledger.json.

Security

• Your token only goes to Atlassian. JiraPlay sends it only over https to *.atlassian.net or *.jira.com (plus any hosts you list in jiraPlay.allowedHosts / JIRA_ALLOWED_HOSTS), and never follows redirects with it. In VS Code the site and email are user-only settings, so a workspace's settings can't point your token elsewhere.
• VS Code keeps the token in the system keychain. The board runs under a strict Content Security Policy: bundled scripts, styles and fonts only, and images only from Atlassian and Gravatar.
• The web app listens on 127.0.0.1 and answers only requests addressed to localhost from local pages, which blocks DNS rebinding and other websites. .env and the XP ledger are written atomically and readable only by you.

Development

npm run check      # typecheck, lint and tests
npm run test       # Vitest
npm run lint       # oxlint, including import boundaries between src/, shared/, server/ and extension/

See CLAUDE.md for the architecture.

License

MIT © 2026 Jayesh Karande