How autofill works
The matching algorithm — why a Story template fills automatically when you create a Story ticket, and how to control it.
Autofill is the headline feature: open a Jira create-issue dialog, the extension figures out the right template, and your description is pre-populated. No clicking, no copy-paste.
The rules
When you open a ticket, the extension scans your templates and applies the first template that matches all of these:
- Project matches — the template’s projects field is blank (which makes it universal) or includes the current project key.
- Issue type matches — the template’s
issueTypematches the dialog’s selected issue type (case-insensitive). - Platform matches — the template’s
platformisall(the default value) or matches the current platform (Jira Server, Jira Cloud, Azure DevOps).
If multiple templates match, the first one in the list wins. That’s why ordering matters — see Templates → Reordering.
Project-specific overrides
A common pattern is to have a universal Bug template (projects field left blank), then override it for a specific project that has different requirements:
| Order | Name | Projects | Issue Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bug — ABC project | ABC | Bug |
| 2 | Bug — generic | (blank) | Bug |
Because ABC comes first and matches when you’re in the ABC project, it wins. In any other project the generic blank-projects template fills in.
Issue type detection
The extension reads the issue type from the create-issue form’s type selector. That works on both Jira Server (where it’s a <select> element) and Jira Cloud (where it’s a custom dropdown rendered as a button).
If you change the issue type after a template is filled, the extension re-runs and replaces the description with the matching template — but only if the description hasn’t been edited yet (so we don’t overwrite your work).
Preserving existing content
When you’re editing an existing ticket and trigger an insert manually, the extension does not overwrite. It appends the template content to whatever is already there.
Tip: You can change this behavior in Settings under “Replace existing content”.
Per-template toggles
Each template has three “appears in” toggles:
- Quick-access dropdown — the toolbar dropdown in Jira.
- Quick-access buttons — the row of buttons above the description.
- Right-click context menu — the browser’s right-click on the description field.
Disable any of these per-template if you don’t want the template to surface in that location. Autofill ignores these toggles — it always tries to fill, regardless of which menus the template appears in.
When autofill doesn’t fire
Three common reasons:
- No template matches. Check that you have a template with the projects field either blank (which matches all projects) or listing your project key, and that its issue type matches the one selected in the form.
- The page hasn’t loaded the form yet. The extension waits for the form to appear via MutationObserver, but on slow connections it might miss the first render. Refresh the page.
- The platform is unsupported. Trello and Asana have basic support; Azure DevOps support is still rolling out — see Azure DevOps.