Introducing Atlassian Connect

Build, install and sell add-ons for JIRA and Confluence OnDemand

What is Atlassian Connect?

An Atlassian Connect add-on is any web application that extends an Atlassian application, like JIRA or Confluence. It may be an existing app that you integrate with the Atlassian app or a new service that you create to add features to an Atlassian app. Atlassian Connect add-ons operate remotely over HTTP and can be written with any programming language and web framework.

Fundamentally, Atlassian Connect add-ons have three major capabilities. Add-ons can:

1. Insert content in certain defined places in the Atlassian application's UI.
2. Make calls to the Atlassian application's REST API.
3. Listen and respond to WebHooks fired by the Atlassian application.

Interacting with Atlassian OnDemand

While Atlassian Connect add-ons run seaparately from the Atlassian application, to an end user, the add-on appears as a fully integrated part of the Atlassian application. After subscribing to the add-on, the features are delivered from within the UI and workflows of the host application.

Most Atlassian Connect add-ons will be implemented as multi-tenanted services. This means that a single Atlassian Connect application must take into account multiple subscribing organizations. For example, each add-on will maintain subscriber-specific data and configuration. For more about multi-tenancy design considerations, see Understand OnDemand.

Security is a important concern in a distributed component model such as Atlassian Connect. Atlassian Connect relies on HTTPS and JWT authentication to secure communication between the add-on, the Atlassian product instance and the end-user's browser.

Read our security overview for more details.