Create Jira Automation Rules (2026)

How to create Jira automation rules

Quick Answer: To create Jira automation rules, navigate to Project Settings > Automation, click "Create rule," select a trigger (issue created, status changed, sprint started), add conditions and actions (transition issue, assign, comment, send notification), and enable. The Free plan includes 100 rule executions per month.

How to Create Jira Automation Rules

Jira Cloud provides a built-in automation engine for automating issue management, sprint workflows, and notification routing.

Step-by-Step Setup

Step 1: Access the Automation Settings

Navigate to Project Settings > Automation (project-level rules) or Settings > System > Global Automation (instance-wide rules). Click "Create rule."

Step 2: Select a Trigger

Choose what starts the automation:

Issue created: New issue added to project
Status changed: Issue transitions between statuses
Sprint started/completed: Agile sprint events
Field value changed: Any field update (priority, assignee, labels)
Scheduled: Run at specified intervals (daily, weekly)
Branch/PR created: Development events from connected repos

Step 3: Add Conditions (Optional)

Filter which issues the rule applies to:

Issue type (Bug, Story, Task, Epic)
Priority level (Highest, High, Medium, Low)
Component, label, or sprint membership
JQL-based advanced conditions

Step 4: Define Actions

Specify what happens when the rule fires:

Transition issue: Move to a different status
Assign issue: Set assignee based on component or round-robin
Add comment: Post an automated comment
Send notification: Email or Slack alert
Create subtask: Generate child issues automatically
Edit issue: Update fields (priority, labels, story points)

Step 5: Test and Enable

Use the "Audit log" to test with recent issues
Review the rule execution preview
Toggle the rule to "Enabled"
Monitor execution in the Automation Audit Log

Popular Jira Automation Rules

Rule	Trigger	Action	Use Case
Auto-assign bugs	Bug created	Assign to on-call engineer	Bug triage
Sprint close cleanup	Sprint completed	Move incomplete to next sprint	Sprint hygiene
PR merge transition	Pull request merged	Move issue to "Done"	Dev workflow
SLA escalation	Issue open > 48 hrs	Set priority to High + notify	SLA compliance
Auto-label	Issue created with "API" in summary	Add "api" label	Organization

Editor's Note: We configured 8 automation rules for a 20-person engineering team's Jira project. The highest-impact rule was auto-transitioning issues to "Done" when a linked PR was merged. This eliminated 50+ manual status updates per sprint (10 per developer per 2-week sprint). Setup took 45 minutes total.