Require Personal Access Tokens for user actions (create branch/pull request)

What’s on this page:

• Background
• Objective
• Instructions
• What will Jira users see?

Background

The Git Integration for Jira app allows users of integrations (such as GitLab, GitHub and etc.) to create branches and pull requests from within the Jira issue. By default, the operation will be performed by the integration user that is used for indexing.

Objective

For teams looking to maintain user attribution, Jira administrators can require that individual Jira users provide personal access tokens to perform actions such as creating a branch or pull request in Jira. This can be done by using their git service account rather than the integration account.

Instructions

To enable/disable the Require User PAT setting for all repositories within an integration:

1. Navigate to Manage Git repositories.

2. Add a new integration or edit existing integration’s feature settings.

   
   

3. Locate the Require User PAT setting.

   
   

4. Tick the box to enable the requiring of user PAT.

5. Click Update at the bottom of the page to save the setting.

What will Jira users see?

1. Once the Jira administrator requires Personal Access Tokens, your Jira users will be presented with a message that setup is required.

   
   

2. Following that link – the user is taken to a prompt on the User settings screen to enter Personal Access Token (PAT) for the service (GitHub, GitLab, etc).
   See Instructions: Creating Personal Access Tokens.

   
   

   If you don’t have a token or your existing PAT has expired, click the New token label link to start generating a new PAT.

3. With the Personal Access Token saved – the user will now see the following:

   
   

PATs were introduced with TFS 2017 and newer.  TFS 2013 and TFS 2015 do not support PATs.  If the repository setting Require User PAT property is set to ON, the users will not be able to create/delete branches and pull requests.

Personal Access Tokens are saved per integration by individual Jira users app. Examples shown above are for the Create branch action; Create pull request is the same. The same token is used for Create branch and Create pull request.

Jira users must have the View Development Tools permission in the context of a Jira project to view content from the Git Integration for Jira app.