Jira issue templates in Jira Cloud: what Jira does on its own, and when an app helps

Jira Cloud has no issue templates. It has several ways to get part of the way. Here is what each one does, where it stops, and what an app adds.

By Rolf Eriksen Published 21 October 2026 11 min read

Checked against Atlassian’s pages on 21 October 2026 · We make an app for this (disclosure)

Jira Cloud has templates for projects, not for issues. The request for issue templates, JRACLOUD-7731, was opened in 2005 and is still marked Gathering Interest.

You can get part of the way without an app: a default description in team-managed projects, a workaround in company-managed ones, a block template inserted into the description, an Automation rule, or a work item you keep only to clone.

None of them lets people pick one of several templates for a whole work item. That is what an app adds. Ours opens Jira’s own Create dialog with the chosen template filled in.

A note on words: Atlassian’s newer pages say spaces, work items and work types for projects, issues and issue types. This page uses both.

When an admin asks for issue templates, they usually want one or more of these:

• Fields filled in before anyone types. A summary that starts with “Bug: ”, a description with headings to fill in, the right labels, a priority.
• A checklist. The steps everyone should tick before the work is done.
• More than one template per work type. A bug reported by support needs different questions from a bug found in testing.
• A parent with children. An epic with its stories, or a story with its sub-tasks, created together. Our guide to Jira templates with sub-tasks covers this one.

The first three are about the Create dialog. The last is about creating several work items at once.

Team-managed projects

Atlassian’s knowledge base says team-managed projects can set a default description for new work items, and company-managed projects cannot (KB). Atlassian’s recap on JRACLOUD-4812 gives the path: Project settings → Issue types, select Description, and write the default text.

One limit is documented: a team-managed default description cannot contain a table (KB). It is also one text per work type, for the description only. People cannot choose between two.

Company-managed projects

Here Jira does not support a default value for the system Description field. The request for defaults on system fields, JRACLOUD-4812, dates from 2004 and is marked Future Consideration. It had 2,799 votes on 21 October 2026. Atlassian’s April 2023 update on it says the work was paused. A narrower request for a default description template, JRACLOUD-42197, was closed as Won’t Do in August 2024.

Atlassian’s workaround uses a stand-in field:

1. Create a custom field of type Paragraph, for example TemplateDescription. Under Contexts and default value, give it your template as its default.
2. Put it on the Create screen only. Take the system Description field off that screen. The view and edit screens keep Description, so you may need a separate Create screen.
3. In the workflow’s Create transition, add two post functions at the top: Copy Value From Other Field, from TemplateDescription to Description, and then one that clears TemplateDescription.
4. Publish the workflow.

It works, but it changes a custom field, screens and a workflow. Plan it with whoever looks after those. It still gives each work type one template, not a choice.

Our guide to a Jira default description goes through both kinds of space and the Automation route step by step, with short description templates to copy.

Need text to put there? Our free Jira issue template generator writes a description and checklist for a bug, story, task, incident, spike or epic.

Jira can insert a block template into a work item’s description: a ready-made piece of content such as a table or a status update. Put the cursor in the description, type / and the template’s name, or open the Insert menu and browse. Atlassian provides some block templates. You can add your own, but only in Confluence. Each inserted copy stands on its own and can be edited.

It helps with the description only, and someone has to remember to insert it. Atlassian’s page does not say whether it works in the Create dialog. The page also mentions “work item templates” that define a whole new work item. We found no Atlassian help page for that on 21 October 2026, so we leave it out.

Write the template after the work item is created

Atlassian’s KB for a default description template uses a rule with three parts: the Work item created trigger, a condition on the work type, and an Edit work item action that writes the template into Description. The KB’s version keeps what the person typed, with {{issue.description}}, and puts the template under it.

The catch is timing. The rule runs after the work item exists. The person in the Create dialog still starts from an empty description, and the template appears later.

Create the work item from a rule

A rule can start with the Manual trigger from work item. People run it from a work item’s Actions menu. You can limit who may run it, and it can ask for input first. Its Create work item action creates a work item of any type, with the fields you set. The rule creates it directly. Nobody sees the Create dialog.

Rules can make children too. Atlassian’s KB on cloning a story with its sub-tasks clones the parent, stores the new key in a variable, then clones each sub-task under it. The variable matters. Without it, {{createdIssue.key}} changes as each sub-task is made, and later sub-tasks point to the wrong parent.

What it costs in steps

Every trigger, condition, action, branch and loop that runs counts as one Automation step, from your organisation’s monthly allowance (usage doc). A rule on Work item created runs for every new work item, even when its condition says no. Our step billing guide has the arithmetic.

One workaround is to keep a work item that is never closed and clone it when you need another. The original request on JRACLOUD-7731, from 2005, describes exactly that.

Atlassian’s Clone page describes it like this. Open the work item and choose ••• → Clone. Edit the summary, and the assignee and reporter if needed. Choose what to include, then select Clone. You can include attachments, sub-tasks, links, comments, custom fields that are set up to be cloned, and an epic’s child work items. The copy is linked to the original, and its summary starts with “Clone”. You need the Create work items permission.

That is Atlassian’s description. We have not tested it on a test site for this guide.

The limit: the template is a live work item. It turns up in searches and boards like any other, and anyone who can edit it can change the template for everyone.

In Jira Service Management, a request type already does much of a template’s job for customers. On a request type’s request form, a service space admin can rename fields, add help text, make fields required, and fill a field in with Use preset value and hide from portal. A form can be attached to a request type, for sections, conditions and layout.

The Description system field still cannot have a default. Atlassian’s KB replaces it with a custom Paragraph field that has one. It warns that rules, SLA conditions, filters and integrations that use Description then need changing, and that Description must stay on request types used for email requests.

This shapes what customers fill in on the portal. More: request templates in Jira Service Management, with four request types to copy. For requests that repeat, see our guide to recurring tickets.

The pattern: Jira can give each work type one starting text, let people insert a block by hand, or run a rule instead of the dialog or after it. None of these lets a person pick one of several templates and see the result in the Create dialog before saving.

We make Issue Templates & Create Defaults for Jira. That is why this page exists. This section describes version 2.12.0, the version on the Atlassian Marketplace on 21 October 2026.

What it does

• A Templates page in each project, and one under Apps for every project you can see. Pick a template, choose the work type if more than one fits, and press Create. Jira’s own Create dialog opens with the summary, description, checklist (as Jira’s own action items), labels and priority filled in. The person can change anything before creating. Jira’s required fields, permissions and workflow apply, and the app never creates the work item itself. (docs)
• A default template per work type. When someone opens Create from the Create button or with C and chooses that type, the app adds one line under Summary: Default template for this work type: “Bug report”. To use it, open Templates in the project sidebar. It writes nothing into the form by itself. (docs)
• Save as template from a work item’s ••• menu, for project and Jira admins. Headings, tables, panels, code blocks and checklists are kept. @mentions, attachments and email addresses are left out. (docs)
• Version history. The last 50 versions of each template, any of which can be restored. A deleted template can be restored for 30 days. (docs)
• Check now, and a daily check. They test whether each template still fits its projects: the work types it names, and the fields on the create screen. A Jira admin can have the daily check create an alert work item when something new stops working. (docs)
• Child work items and sub-tasks. A template can list work items to create under the one it makes, in order: stories and tasks under an epic, sub-tasks under each, or sub-tasks under a task or bug. Add work items from template adds them under an existing work item after a preview, and changes nothing already there. (docs, and our guide to templates with sub-tasks)
• A Jira Automation action. Add work items from template is also an action in Jira Automation, so a rule can add a template’s work items under a work item, for example under every new epic. (docs)
• Moving templates to another site. Jira admins can export every template as text and import it on another site. A check shows what fits before anything is saved, and a template that already exists is never overwritten. (docs)
• Project admins manage their own project’s templates without a Jira admin. Jira admins manage every template. (docs)
• Nothing leaves Atlassian. It runs on Atlassian’s Forge platform, and its listing carries the Runs on Atlassian badge (checked 21 October 2026). It records no account ids, names or email addresses of the people who use it. (docs)

Why does it name the default instead of filling the form? Jira can run an app again on a Create dialog that was minimised and restored, and report an empty form while the person’s text is on screen. An app that fills empty forms could then overwrite that text. Until Jira tells apps which form they are on, ours leaves the form to the person.

What it does not do

• It does not fill the Create dialog when someone opens it from the Create button or with C. It names the default there. Filling happens only from the Templates page.
• It fills summary, description with the checklist, labels and priority, and since version 2.9.0 the assignee (the person using the template), a due date a number of days ahead and components, and custom fields: text, paragraph, number, date, dropdowns, checkboxes, labels and URLs. Not versions or a named assignee.
• Child work items go at most two levels below the work item they start from. A work type that needs a field the template does not fill makes Jira refuse that item; the rest can still be created.
• It does not apply to inline create on a board, backlog or list, email, the REST API, import, cloning, the mobile apps or a service portal. In Jira Automation it works only through its own action, which adds a template’s work items under an existing work item.
• Service projects are not on Atlassian’s supported list for the Create dialog feature it uses.
• Work types are matched by name. Rename one and the template no longer matches; the check tells you.

The full list is in the documentation’s limits.

Ask every vendor the same questions, us included. Our answers are above and in the documentation.

1. Where does it run? Does the listing show Runs on Atlassian? Does the app send data anywhere outside Atlassian?
2. Whose form is it? Does it open Jira’s own Create dialog, with your required fields, permissions and workflow, or a form of its own?
3. Can it overwrite what someone typed? Ask how it decides that a form is empty.
4. Which fields? Which can it fill, and which not?
5. Where does it apply? The Create dialog only, or also inline create, email, Automation and the API?
6. What happens when Jira changes? A field leaves the create screen, a work type is renamed. Does the app tell you?
7. Children: are they created in order? What happens if one fails halfway?
8. Who edits templates? Only Jira admins, or project admins too?
9. Undo: is there version history, and can a deleted template come back?
10. People: what does it record about who uses it?

Does Jira Cloud have issue templates?

Not as a feature. Jira Cloud has templates for projects (spaces), not for work items. JRACLOUD-7731, the request for issue templates, is marked Gathering Interest. In January 2016 Atlassian wrote on it that it had no plans to support it. The native options above each cover part of the need.

Can I set a default description in Jira Cloud?

In a team-managed project, yes, one per work type. In a company-managed project, not for the system Description field. Atlassian’s workaround uses a stand-in Paragraph field and a workflow post function. See option A.

Can a template create sub-tasks?

In native Jira, an Automation rule can, and the Clone dialog can include a work item’s sub-tasks. Our app can from version 2.7.0: a template lists child work items and sub-tasks, and they are created in that order under the work item it makes, or under an existing one. See Jira templates with sub-tasks.

Does the Issue Templates app see my data?

It runs on Atlassian’s Forge platform and sends nothing outside Atlassian. It records no account ids, names or email addresses of the people who use it. What someone types in the Create dialog is read in their browser and never stored. The privacy policy lists what the app keeps.

What does the Issue Templates app cost?

Prices and a free trial are on its Atlassian Marketplace listing. We do not repeat the prices here, so they cannot go out of date on this page.

• Jira epic template with stories and sub-tasks: an Automation rule that builds the breakdown, what each run costs in steps, and three epics to copy.
• Add the same sub-tasks to an existing Jira work item: by hand, with a rule run from the work item, on a schedule, or with an app.
• Issue Templates & Create Defaults for Jira: the app’s page.
• Issue Templates documentation: setup, defaults, Save as template, the checks, limits and data.
• Jira issue template generator, free, with ready pages for a bug report, user story, task, incident, spike and epic.
• Request templates in Jira Service Management: request types, help text, forms with conditions and portal groups, with four request types to copy.
• Recurring tickets in Jira Service Management after Automation step billing: what Automation steps cost, and when another way is better.
• Jira employee onboarding template with sub-tasks: the same steps for every new starter.

Every statement about Jira on this page comes from the Atlassian pages below, read on 21 October 2026. Where Atlassian’s pages did not say something, we left it out.

• JRACLOUD-7731: Issue Templates (Gathering Interest) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• JRACLOUD-4812: Default values of system fields (Future Consideration) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• JRACLOUD-42197: Ability to set a default description template (Closed, Won’t Do) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Set Default Description in Jira Cloud Company-Managed Projects (KB) (checked 21 Oct 2026, last changed 26 Sep 2025)
• How to Add Tables in Jira Default Description (KB) (checked 21 Oct 2026, last changed 25 Sep 2025)
• Set Default Description Template for Jira Cloud Work Item Types (KB) (checked 21 Oct 2026, last changed 25 Sep 2025)
• Automation: How to clone tasks/stories along with their sub-tasks (KB) (checked 21 Oct 2026, last changed 26 Sep 2025)
• Use block templates in Jira (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Jira automation triggers (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Jira automation actions (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• How is your automation usage calculated (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Clone a work item (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Set up request forms and work item views for request types (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Add a form to a request type (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Set default value for the Description field in JSM request forms (KB) (checked 21 Oct 2026)
• Create a new space (checked 21 Oct 2026)

Changelog

• 21 October 2026, evening. Updated for version 2.12.0: the Jira Automation action and moving templates between sites are listed under what the app does, and the demo video is added.
• 21 October 2026, later the same day. Updated for version 2.7.0, released that day: child work items and sub-tasks. The "in development" note is removed.
• 21 October 2026. First version, describing Issue Templates & Create Defaults for Jira 2.6.0.

Corrections

None yet. If something here is wrong, email [email protected]. We will fix it and say so here.