Ticket Sidekick

Manage Jira tickets with GitHub Copilot Chat — without leaving VS Code.

Prerequisites

• VS Code 1.90 or later
• GitHub Copilot extension installed and signed in
• Jira 10 Data Center or any Jira Cloud instance

Setup

1. Set the Jira base URL

Open VS Code settings (Ctrl+, / Cmd+,) and add:

"ticketSidekick.baseUrl": "https://jira.mycompany.com"

For Jira Cloud: "https://your-org.atlassian.net"

2. Set your auth type (Cloud only)

"ticketSidekick.authType": "cloud"

Omit this setting for Data Center (default).

3. Store your credentials

Data Center: Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) → Ticket Sidekick: Set Personal Access Token

Cloud: Open the Command Palette → Ticket Sidekick: Configure Cloud Credentials (You will need your Atlassian email and an API token from id.atlassian.com)

Usage

Open GitHub Copilot Chat and use @jira:

Ticket detection

If you don't name a ticket, the plugin resolves it in this order:

1. Explicit key in your prompt (PROJ-123)
2. Current git branch — feature/PROJ-123-my-work → PROJ-123
3. Last ticket referenced earlier in the chat session
4. Input box — the plugin asks you

This means you can @jira show PROJ-123, then immediately follow up with @jira add a comment: done without repeating the key.

Optional: default project

"ticketSidekick.defaultProject": "VSJI"

When set, the create command skips the project input box and uses this key automatically. You can still override it by including a project key in your prompt.

Optional: required fields

"ticketSidekick.requiredFields": ["assignee", "priority", "fixVersions"]

Used by the check required fields command.

Optional: ticket templates and cleanup rules

Create a .jira-templates.json file in your workspace root to define per-application templates with default fields and guided description collection, plus named cleanup rules for bulk status transitions.

{
  "templates": [
    {
      "name": "Billing App Bug",
      "issueType": "Bug",
      "defaultFields": {
        "priority": { "name": "High" },
        "labels": ["billing"]
      },
      "resolveFields": {
        "customfield_10020": { "type": "sprint", "name": "Sprint 42" },
        "customfield_10050": [{ "type": "team", "id": "billing-team-id" }]
      },
      "descriptionSections": [
        "Steps to reproduce",
        "Expected behavior",
        "Actual behavior"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "cleanupRules": [
    {
      "name": "Close released bugs",
      "project": "BILLING",
      "issueType": "Bug",
      "targetState": "Done",
      "resolution": "Fixed",
      "closeSubtasks": true
    }
  ]
}

When you run @jira create, the plugin shows a numbered list of your templates. Choosing one:

• Pre-populates custom fields from defaultFields and resolved resolveFields entries
• Guides you through each descriptionSections entry with a follow-up question per turn, building the description incrementally
• Resumes automatically if the conversation is interrupted — session state is preserved in the chat history

resolveFields entries support two forms:

• { "type": "sprint", "name": "Sprint 42" } — resolves by name via the Jira Agile API
• { "type": "team", "id": "abc123" } — passes the id through directly (no API call)

Wrap a single entry in an array when the Jira field expects an array value.

You can choose No template to create a plain ticket without any template applied.

Workflow discovery (required for bulk transitions)

Before running cleanup rules or bulk status transitions, teach the plugin your Jira workflow:

@jira discover workflow BILLING Bug

This samples tickets across all statuses, queries their available transitions, and saves a workflow graph to .jira-workflow-cache.json at your workspace root. Re-run whenever your Jira workflow changes.

The plugin uses this graph to find the shortest transition path from each ticket's current status to the target state.

Tip: Commit .jira-workflow-cache.json to share it with your team so everyone benefits from a single discovery run.

Bulk cleanup

Run a named cleanup rule to transition a batch of tickets to a target state:

@jira run cleanup "Close released bugs"

Or target a specific fix version ad-hoc:

@jira close BILLING bugs in "Release 3.2"

The plugin:

1. Searches for matching open tickets (and their open subtasks if closeSubtasks is true)
2. Asks for a resolution once if the rule has no resolution configured and the target state is a closed state
3. Shows a review screen listing every ticket and the transition path it will follow

On the review screen, reply:

• ok — execute all transitions
• (c) or cancel — abort the entire run
• ticket number(s) — skip those tickets (e.g. 123 or 123 456); skipping a subtask also skips its parent; skipping a parent also skips all its subtasks

Execution streams one confirmation line per ticket. Failures are reported at the end without stopping the rest of the batch.

Getting a free Cloud test instance

1. Create a free account at atlassian.com
2. Generate an API token at id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/security/api-tokens
3. Set ticketSidekick.baseUrl to https://<you>.atlassian.net and ticketSidekick.authType to "cloud"
4. Run Ticket Sidekick: Configure Cloud Credentials