Jira transition

Jira Transition Skill

Transition a Jira issue to a target status reliably — including Jira projects that have hidden required fields on transition screens (like XP's effort estimate validator).

Steps

1. Resolve inputs

You need:

• Issue key — e.g. XP-6930. Extract from branch name, conversation, or ask.
• Target status — e.g. "In Progress", "Closed". If not specified, ask.
• Cloud ID — use getAccessibleAtlassianResources if not yet known. For this Intuit Jira instance the cloud ID is typically f8519793-3215-4b8b-9f9a-3c66dd15afc5, but verify with getAccessibleAtlassianResources if a call fails with an auth error.

2. Get current user's account ID

Call atlassianUserInfo to get the current user's accountId. You'll need this for the assignee field and the comment author context.

3. Discover the transition and its required fields

Call getTransitionsForJiraIssue with expand=transitions.fields:

getTransitionsForJiraIssue(
  cloudId=...,
  issueIdOrKey=...,
  expand="transitions.fields"
)

Find the transition whose name matches the target status (case-insensitive, fuzzy-ok — "in progress" matches "In Progress"). Note its id and inspect its fields map.

4. Build the fields payload and transition

Only include fields that appear in the transition's fields map — never send fields speculatively. Iterate over the map and apply these defaults:

Field type	Default value
number / float	0
user / assignee	{"accountId": "<current user>"}
string / textarea	omit (don't send empty strings)
date / datetime	omit
array (sprint, versions)	omit
resolution	{"id": "10041"} (Fixed/Finished) — for Closed/Done transitions

Then call transitionJiraIssue:

transitionJiraIssue(
  cloudId=...,
  issueIdOrKey=...,
  transition={"id": "<id>"},
  fields={<only fields present in the transition's fields map, with defaults above>}
)

If the call fails, read the error carefully and retry once:

• "field is required" — add that field with its default from the table
• "field cannot be set" — remove that field from the payload
• Any other error — report it to the user without retrying

Note: Jira's API marks many required fields as required: false in the schema response, but the workflow validator still enforces them at runtime. The retry-on-failure approach handles this gracefully without needing project-specific hardcoding.

5. Verify success

Call getJiraIssue and confirm status.name matches the target. If it doesn't match, report the failure with the error details rather than silently succeeding.

6. Post a comment

After a successful transition, post a brief comment using addCommentToJiraIssue:

• For "In Progress": "Starting work on this ticket."
• For "Closed" / "Done" / "Resolved": "Ticket closed."
• For "Blocked": "Marking as blocked — see PR/conversation for context."
• For any other status: "Status updated to {target_status}."

7. Report to the user

Show a one-line confirmation:

✅ XP-6930 → In Progress

If anything failed, show the error and suggest checking the ticket directly.

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Known project quirks

Some Jira projects have workflow validators that enforce fields the schema doesn't flag as required. The fields-map-driven approach above handles most cases automatically. The following are cases where a field is enforced but genuinely absent from the fields map (so the retry loop won't catch it on its own):

Project	Issue type	Transition	Notes
XP	Story	In Progress	customfield_10134 (Story Points) enforced by validator but absent from fields map — pass 0 proactively