Reply to comments for meaningful conversations in Jira

[#1]

Hello community, 

I'm Shikhar, a Product Manager in Jira Cloud. I'm thrilled to announce a change that is coming soon. We are introducing the ability to reply to comments on work items - to assist you kickstart a conversation and encourage meaningful discussions in Jira.

What's new?

The new experience will now be accessible across all work item screens. You can now reply to any comment within a work item to help facilitate ongoing conversations within context. The comment threads, also know as the child comments will inherit the visibility of the parent comment.

You will have the option to respond to any comment, and the original author will be automatically tagged, ensuring they receive a notification about your new reply.

Why we're making this change?

We have heard your feedback! Many of you have been asking for this change for quite some time, and we are thrilled to announce this feature. Additionally, when dealing with multiple comments, it can be challenging to stay across context.

Feedback Welcomed!

We are continuing to invest in this experience and would love your feedback to make it even better. Here are some ways you can give us feedback:

• Leaving a comment below.

• Opening a work item and selecting Give feedback in the top right.

• Emailing me at spahadia@atlassian.com.

We’d love to hear how we can help you.

[Vikrant Yadav]

That's great and most awaited feature. 

[Daniel Bagiński]

Hey, that's great! When exactly are you planning on rolling it out?

[Yatish Madhav]

Brilliant - thanks Atlassian and @Shikhar Pahadia 

Yeah, when is this rolling out? Also, how will this affect the Issue Comments API https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/jira/platform/rest/v3/api-group-issue-comments/#api-group-issue-comments?

Thank you 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Shikhar Pahadia 

Yes, and...to the questions from @Yatish Madhav 

How will this new comment structure impact iteration over comments, such as in automation rules?  Specifically, will the comments remain ordered by the created date / time (perhaps with a parent ID added for context within the comment chain) or will the JSON structure be changed, impacting how iteration is done entirely?

Kind regards,
Bill

[Matt Doar (Adaptavist)]

Looks promising. Did I miss out on an RFC for this where the API questions could have been already raised?

[James Rickards _Spark-Nel_]

Please edit this post to provide clarity around impacts to API and Automations, the impacts to JSM and the customer experience in the JSM Portal, and rollout data information.

[__ Jimi Wikman]

I like it!

I take it this is just one level though, so not a fully threaded solution?

[asadiq]

Can't wait to experience it!!!

[Dennis Stengele]

Credit where credit is due: This looks like an amazing feature and I am looking forward to trying it out! Good job, Atlassian!

[John Elder]

Wonderful new feature.  Since this will be a significant upgrade in Comment functionality, I'd like to make my Users aware it is coming.  I noticed as of today it is still not available in Jira (for us, at least).  Any chance there is a timeline on roll-out?

[Sven Odermatt]

Looks like a great feature! Will there be a feature to collapse comment-threads?

[Raphael Lopes]

Sounds good, but, how can i disable this feature? It's not work in my integration with freshdesk.

[Christine Kager]

Hello,
when will this function be available? Or does it have to be activated separately?
We have been waiting a long time for this function and I would like to be able to use it asap.

Thank you for your feedback!

[Steven Rhodes]

JAC ticket here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-3406 open since 16th March 2004. Happy that they got there in the end.

[Rebekka Heilmann _viadee_]

Awesome feature for all those companies that refine their work items in the comment section ;) 

Can we get some info on the impacts on API and Automation like @Bill Sheboy and @Yatish Madhav already asked?

[Christine Kager]

Hello again, 

thx for the prompt replay. At our site (cloud) the comment function is not visible at yet. 

Or is it nessesary to activated the function. If yes: where? I cant find any option in the settings? 

BR 

[Shikhar Pahadia]

Good day, everyone,

Thank you for your valuable feedback. I am thrilled to announce that we have successfully rolled out this feature, and all of you can now access it on your Jira.

I would like to address some of the concerns raised in the comments:

Changes to the API: In this release, we are not implementing any API changes related to the threaded comments feature. We will issue an RFC requesting feedback when we intend to extend the support.

Is this feature available in JSM?: Unfortunately, this feature is not supported in JSM as of now; it is exclusively available for Jira users.

How will this impact iterations over comments? There will be no schematic changes to the API contracts. All comments will maintain the same structure in every API response, with the order based on the creation date and time for both parent and child comments.

Thank you once again for your feedback. Please feel free to share any additional concerns or suggestions you may have.

[Darryl Lee]

Hi - I see this change in Continuous Release Track documented here in Atlassian Cloud changes Mar 24 to Mar 31, 2025

But I don't see it on our instance that is on the Bundled Release Track. Nor do I see it on our instance that is on the Preview Release Track. 

Nor was this change documented in the "Bundled changes for your product for Jira" email from March 14, 2025.

The next bundled release for your products at https://MYSITE.atlassian.net will roll out on Apr 07, 2025 PDT.

Is this change slated to be released in bundled tracks in May then? Will it show up in preview tracks on April 7?

[Nestor Rodriguez Perez]

Dear @Shikhar Pahadia .

This feature looks useful, however I am missing something important here.

I am getting lately complaints of users who can't find in the issue view comments that they got in an email notification. After investigating, we realized that the missing comment were replies to older comments that were inserted down in the issue view and not the latest comment (the first in the list) as the user expected.

So, it would be great if, when notifying a user by email of a comment which is a reply of another comment, you could include the original comment in the email notification (with author, time and date), together with the reply.

Thank you and BR

[Nikola Perisic]

Hello @Shikhar Pahadia 

When we will be able to test this feature out? 

[Zee Choudhry]

@Shikhar Pahadia 

I have created this feature request to improve the message in email notifications for cases when a reply is made to an old comment from a month ago and the mentioned user can't determine which comment it was from the email notification or the History of Work item.  Only All tab shows a comment is made and with a link to the comment you can navigate to the original old comment which was used for replying. 
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-93939