Documentation

1.0-m25

Atlassian Connect 1.0-m25 introduces a number of changes to how you will build add-ons for Atlassian OnDemand. There are two important changes in this release: a new format for your add-on descriptor and a new authentication method. Both of these changes are designed to help developers build add-ons more quickly and easily.

JSON Add-on Descriptor

With Atlassian Connect 1.0-m25, you can write your add-on descriptor using a new JSON format. That format is extensively documented in this guide.

We have written several guides to help you transition an atlassian-plugin.xml to the new descriptor format:

We have also updated several of the example add-ons:

More docs are coming soon:

  • How to migrate your Marketplace listing to JSON
The atlassian-plugin.xml descriptor is now deprecated and should no longer be used. atlassian-plugin.xml will be removed from Atlassian Connect on 28th February, 2014. Any add-ons on the Atlassian Marketplace will need to be migrated before this date.

JSON Web Token (JWT) Authentication

JSON Web Token (JWT) is a new authentication mechanism which is provided as an alternative to OAuth 1.0. We are responding to significant feedback that OAuth 1.0 is difficult to implement, debug and integrate into existing applications.

Read about JWT and how to implement it in our authentication docs. We think JWT is significantly more straight forward to understand and implement than OAuth 1.0!

atlassian-connect-express version 0.9.0 comes with support for JWT out of the box.

OAuth authentication for Connect is now deprecated and should no longer be used. However, we recognise that replacing the authentication stack away from OAuth 1.0 may take more time. We'll be removing support for OAuth 1.0 in May 2014.

atlassian-connect-express v0.9.0

We have released version 0.9.0 of atlassian-connect-express, with support for JWT and the JSON descriptor.

Version 0.9.0 no longer supports the XML descriptor or OAuth 1.0. Read how to upgrade your Atlassian Connect Express add-on.

New Documentation

Lastly, the Atlassian Connect dev team is pleased to preview our new documentation portal, which you're looking at right now! This documentation reflects all of the changes outlined here (JWT and JSON Descriptor). It completely documents all of the add-on module types, and is generated directly from source code. We hope this will also make developing Connect add-ons quicker and easier.

Known Limitations

  • Permission scopes are not implemented in the JSON descriptor. We've temporarily allowed JSON descriptor add-ons to bypass all permissions when running in development mode
  • Web items with a target of 'dialog' require an absolute url and the requests are not signed. This will be fixed early in the new year
  • JSON descriptor add-ons aren't yet available to be deployed to OnDemand (we're targeting mid January 2014)
  • The variable substitution format for URLs in JSON descriptors will change from ${variable} to the standard URL template format {variable} only post-m25.

Earlier Releases

For earlier release notes, please see the Atlassian Connect Blog.