Jira: Send LeftSize Findings to Jira Cloud

LeftSize can open its issues in Jira Cloud instead of GitHub Issues. The scan doesn’t change: the GitHub Action still scans your clouds and the LeftSize GitHub App still receives the findings. Only the place where issues are opened changes. You choose a Jira project for all repositories, and optionally a different project (or GitHub Issues) per repository.

In Jira you get the same issues as on GitHub: one per rule and scope, with the affected resources, the estimated savings and how to fix it. You run commands with /leftsize in a comment, or with the buttons in the LeftSize panel on the issue.

Requirements

• Jira Cloud. Jira Data Center and Server aren’t supported.
• A Jira site admin to install the LeftSize app and link the site. Only Jira admins can open the app’s page in Jira.
• LeftSize set up on GitHub: the GitHub App installed and the workflow running. See Getting Started. The GitHub App and the Action stay required.
• Access to the GitHub account that manages LeftSize, to sign in with GitHub when you link the site.

Step 1: Install the LeftSize app in Jira

The LeftSize app for Jira isn’t listed on the Atlassian Marketplace yet. A Jira site admin opens the install link, chooses your site, for example your-site.atlassian.net, and installs the app.

When you install it, Jira shows the permissions the app asks for. See Data and permissions.

Step 2: Link your Jira site to LeftSize

1. In Jira, open Settings (the gear icon) → Apps, and choose LeftSize in the sidebar.
2. Select Link this site to LeftSize. The link works once, for 15 minutes. If it expired, select Get a new link.
3. On leftsize.com, sign in with GitHub, using the account that manages LeftSize.
4. If LeftSize is installed on more than one GitHub account you manage, pick the one whose findings should go to this Jira site.
5. Confirm with Link Jira site.

A Jira site can be linked to one LeftSize installation (one GitHub organization or personal account) at a time.

Once the site is linked, the LeftSize page in Jira says which GitHub account it’s linked to, and its button changes to Open LeftSize settings. Use it whenever you want to change where issues go. You can also open the settings without Jira: go to leftsize.com/link/jira and sign in with GitHub.

Step 3: Choose where new issues go

After linking, the same page asks Where should new issues go?

• All repositories: pick a Jira project (search by name or key), or GitHub Issues, and select Save. Until you save a Jira project, new issues keep going to GitHub Issues.
• Choose per repository: give a repository its own destination: another Jira project, GitHub Issues, or Same as all repositories. A repository’s own choice comes before the one for all repositories.

Switching a repository from one Jira project to another project on the same site only changes where new issues go. The settings page can’t move its open issues between two projects of one site; use Jira’s Move for that (see Moving issues between Jira projects).

When you save, LeftSize checks that it can create issues in the project. New issues go to the new destination from the next scan.

LeftSize creates issues as the issue type Task. In a project without a Task type, it uses the project’s first standard issue type (never a subtask or epic).

Moving open issues

Changing the destination only affects new issues. Issues that are already open stay where they are, unless you move them. When a repository has open issues somewhere else, the settings page offers to move them: tick Also move the open issues… when you save, or select Move N open issues here next to a repository.

When LeftSize moves an issue:

1. It opens a new issue in the destination, with the resources from the latest scan.
2. It comments on the old issue, for example LeftSize moved this issue to Jira: OPS-123. Updates, commands and savings are tracked there from now on., and closes it as not planned. That close records no savings.
3. It comments on the new issue with a link to the old one, where the earlier comments are.

What stays where it is:

• Closed issues, including snoozed and ignored ones. A snoozed issue that comes back after its snooze is reopened where it was closed.
• Very old issues that LeftSize can’t rebuild. The settings page says how many.
• Issues in a repository whose destination is GitHub Issues while Issues are turned off in that repository.

Moving runs in the background: the first issues move right away, and the rest at 5 every 10 minutes (about 30 per hour). The settings page tells you how long it will take. You can close the page.

You can also move issues back from Jira to GitHub Issues the same way.

Moves go between trackers (GitHub Issues and a Jira site), not between projects of the same Jira site. If you change a repository from one Jira project to another, its open issues stay in the first project. Use Jira’s Move to move them; LeftSize follows them (see Moving issues between Jira projects).

What LeftSize issues look like in Jira

LeftSize creates issues as the app’s own user, LeftSize.

• Summary: the same title as on GitHub, for example [COST] 2 disks attached to deallocated VMs (≈ $40/mo). Titles over 255 characters are shortened.
• Description: the resource list, estimated savings and fix steps. Jira limits the size of a description; a description that is too long is cut, and ends with This description was shortened to fit Jira’s size limit.
• Labels: leftsize plus the rule’s labels, with : and spaces replaced by -, for example rule-leftsize-unattached-disk, severity-medium and cloud-azure. To find all LeftSize issues, search with JQL: labels = leftsize.

Each scan updates the summary and description when the findings change. It replaces edits you made to those two fields, so put notes in comments. LeftSize doesn’t change the assignee, priority, labels or other fields after creating the issue, so use them as you like.

The LeftSize panel

LeftSize issues have a LeftSize panel in the issue view. It shows:

• The status: Open, Snoozed (with the date it ends), Ignored (with the reason) or Closed
• The estimated monthly savings and the number of resources, and when they were last found
• The GitHub repository the findings come from

And buttons for what you’d otherwise type as a command:

Snooze, Ignore and Not a problem close the issue and add a comment that says why, so everyone on the issue sees it. The guidance buttons open the answer in a dialog and don’t add a comment.

On an issue LeftSize doesn’t track, the panel isn’t shown, or it says LeftSize doesn’t track this issue.

Commands in Jira

The commands are the same as on GitHub, but in a Jira comment you start them with /leftsize instead of @leftsize:

/leftsize explain
/leftsize snooze 3m
/leftsize ignore Shared dev environment, cost is accepted

leftsize: works too, for example leftsize: howto. A plain-text @leftsize is also read, but Jira’s mention picker usually turns @ into a mention of a person, so use /leftsize.

• LeftSize answers with a comment, usually within a few seconds. A long answer, such as a script, can come as several comments.
• Only the first command in a comment runs, and only the rest of its line is read, as on GitHub.
• A comment is answered once. Editing it doesn’t run it again.
• Replies mention the person who ran the command.
• /leftsize help lists all commands.

Anyone who can comment on a LeftSize issue, or open it to use the panel, can run commands. LeftSize doesn’t check Jira permissions. Use a Jira project that only your team can access.

That includes agents: Claude Code, Cursor and others through the Atlassian MCP server or acli, Rovo agents, and automation rules. Only LeftSize’s own comments are skipped. See Findings in Jira for how agents find and work through LeftSize issues.

Closing and reopening issues in Jira

LeftSize treats an issue as closed when its status is in Jira’s Done category, whatever the status is called in your workflow. The resolution tells LeftSize why:

In most projects, closing an issue counts as fixed. Jira’s default workflows for software projects, team-managed and company-managed alike, don’t ask for a resolution when an issue moves to Done: Jira sets it to Done itself. In those projects every issue a person closes counts as completed, and its estimated savings count as realized, also when it was closed because the finding isn’t a problem. To dismiss a finding there, don’t close the issue: use /leftsize ignore, or Ignore or Not a problem in the LeftSize panel. An issue only closes as Won’t Do (or a similar resolution) when your workflow sets it: a Done transition that asks for the resolution, or a separate transition, such as Won’t Do, that sets it automatically. LeftSize then records the close as not planned.

The rest works as on GitHub (see Closing an issue):

• LeftSize doesn’t reopen an issue that a person closed, and doesn’t open a new one for that rule and scope.
• Snooze moves the issue to a Done status. When the snooze ends and the next scan still finds the problem, LeftSize moves it back to a To Do status (or an In Progress one if there’s no To Do) and comments that the snooze expired.
• Ignore and Not a problem move the issue to a Done status, with a “Won’t Do”-like resolution when the transition asks for one. Where Jira sets the resolution to Done itself, the issue says Done, but LeftSize knows it closed the issue and records no savings.
• Reopening an issue (moving it out of Done) tells LeftSize to track it again: a snooze or ignore no longer applies, and savings recorded at the close are taken back.
• Deleting an issue counts as closing it.

LeftSize closes and reopens issues through your project’s workflow. If the workflow has no transition from the current status to a Done status, LeftSize can’t close the issue: the snooze or ignore is still recorded, and the panel asks you to close the issue yourself.

Moving issues between Jira projects

You can move a LeftSize issue to another project with Jira’s Move. The issue gets a new key; LeftSize follows it, keeps updating it and still reads commands on it. This is the way to move open issues between projects of the same site: the LeftSize settings page only moves issues between GitHub Issues and a Jira site.

Changing or removing the integration

• Change destinations at any time: Jira settings → Apps → LeftSize → Open LeftSize settings, or leftsize.com/link/jira (sign in with GitHub).
• Go back to GitHub Issues: choose GitHub Issues for all repositories (and for any repository with its own choice), and tick the option to move the open issues back if you want them on GitHub.
• Disconnect the site on the settings page. LeftSize stops creating and updating issues there; the issues stay as they are.
• Uninstalling the app from Jira does the same as disconnecting.
• 30 days after you disconnect or uninstall, LeftSize deletes what it kept about the site: its address, name and ID, the keys and links of the issues it created there, and its access token. Repositories that still point at the site keep getting no new issues until you choose another destination. If you link the site again later, choose the projects again.

A site can be linked to only one LeftSize installation at a time. To link it to a different one, disconnect it first, then link it again from Jira.

Limits

• Jira Cloud only.
• One LeftSize installation per Jira site.
• Description size: descriptions over Jira’s limit are cut with a notice. The full resource list is still used for savings and updates.
• Summary length: 255 characters.
• Moving issues: about 30 per hour after the first few.
• Plans: sending issues to Jira doesn’t change which findings get issues. That still depends on your plan.

Data and permissions

The LeftSize app for Jira asks Jira for these permissions:

Jira sends LeftSize an event when an issue on the site is commented on, changed or deleted. LeftSize acts only on the issues it created and ignores the rest without storing them. It ignores its own comments and changes.

LeftSize stores, next to what’s listed in Security and Data:

• The Jira site’s address and name, and which LeftSize installation it’s linked to
• The keys and links of the issues it created
• The Jira account ID of the app itself
• A short-lived access token for the site, encrypted

LeftSize stores no names or account IDs of people in your Jira site. Its replies mention people inside Jira, and its command history records only “Jira user”.

When you disconnect the site or uninstall the app, LeftSize deletes all of this 30 days later (the access token right away on uninstall).

The issues themselves are stored by Atlassian in your Jira site, under your control.