Autowatch for JIRA is a tool to automatically add users to issue watcher lists. Issues to "auto-watch" are matched using JQL and are scoped to individual JIRA projects.

Accessing Autowatch Rules

To access the autowatch rule page, go to the project page of interest, then select Project Administration → Autowatch Rules.


You must have project administrator permissions to access the autowatch rule page.

Editing Autowatch Rules

Creating and editing autowatch rules can be performed quickly and easily using the autowatch rules page. Enter in the JQL that you wish to filter issues on, and then enter the users that should be automatically added to the watchers list. Click Add to commit your changes. 

Rules are immediately enabled when they are added. They do NOT apply retroactively, but if an already created issue is updated to match the filter criteria of an autowatch rule, the users will then be added to the watchers list. 

Running Autowatch Rules

Autowatch rules are executed in the background immediately upon issue creation or update. They are run as if the user that created the rule was adding watchers manually. 

Matching All Issues

Tip: to match every newly created issue in the project, use the JQL created > 0