How to add a "cloud-hosted" private add-on?

[adam-roth]

I'm trying to get a private JIRA add-on/plugin to install in a cloud-hosted JIRA instance.  This should be possible using 'tokens', per the instructions here:

https://developer.atlassian.com/static/connect/docs/latest/developing/cloud-installation.html#tokens

However, I'm not seeing the promised "Create a token" button (or even the "Private Listings" tab), and the page say that this would be because I need to "make sure [my] listing is private and cloud-hosted".  It's definitely 'private', and I see no option for marking it as "cloud-hosted".  

I note that the FAQ has the following to say on the subject:

• Cloud-hosted add-ons require a minimum price of $5 USD per pricing tier.

So I assume that means it wants me to mark my add-on as "Paid via Atlassian" before I can make any tokens for it?  Problem with that is, it won't let me.  It complains that "Cannot be changed to 'Paid via Atlassian' for an existing add-on" whenever I try to apply the change to an existing version, and I'm not given any option of setting the billing options in advance when adding a new add-on or add-on version.

So now my vendor account is getting cluttered with free private add-ons that I can't install, that I can't delete, and that I basically can't do anything useful with.  

How do I submit an add-on that's installable under cloud-hosted JIRA instances?  And why on Earth are free private add-ons not installable in the first place?  They ought to be, particularly given that the cloud-hosted JIRA instance apparently provides no mechanism for just uploading the add-on JAR file directly.  Which would be a simple, straightforward, and vastly preferable solution than going through Marketplace to begin with.

[Dave Meyer · Accepted solution]

Hi Adam,

Is your add-on an Atlassian Connect add-on (i.e. when you created your new version on the Marketplace, did you provide a link to your atlassian-connect.json descriptor)?

It is not possible to install custom plugins (.jar files) in Atlassian Cloud instances.

Dave Meyer

Senior Product Manager, JIRA

[adam-roth]

I'm thinking the answer to that question is 'no'.  I created my plugin following the tutorial instructions (which seem to be fairly outdated), and it does not have an 'atlassian-connect.json' file.

Upon further research, it sounds like 'Atlassian Connect' means Jira's REST API, and an 'Atlassian Connect add-on' is one which uses that API to the exclusion of the standard programmatic Java API?

If that's the case, I have a follow-up question; when will Atlassian be providing a wrapper API that presents the same public (code-level) interface as the programmatic Java API and just delegates to the REST API behind the scenes?  I think something like that is needed, so that 1) plugin developers can feel confident that the Atlassian Connect API is 100% feature-identical to the programmatic API, and 2) plugin developers aren't forced to completely rearchitect their entire solution (or create their own wrapper API) just to have something that can work with Atlassian Cloud instances.

[Dave Meyer]

We have no plans to implement a wrapper API. Atlassian Connect is our supported framework for developing add-ons consistently across JIRA Cloud, Confluence Cloud, Bitbucket Cloud, and HipChat. The architecture of Atlassian Connect is similar to many other SaaS offerings, including Microsoft Office 365 add-ins, Trello Power-ups, Slack apps, and Google Apps add-ons.

The equivalent tutorial for developing an Atlassian Connect add-on is available here, it includes instructions for installing the add-on in your JIRA Cloud instance.

We also have an officially supported Spring Boot starter for building Atlassian Connect add-ons in Java.