Web resources allow you to include JavaScript and CSS resources into certain contexts, for example:

You can read more about web resource modules for JIRA and Confluence.


Web resources need to be loaded either from a plugin, or from specified directories. You can provide a list of directories using the system property plugin.resource.directories. It makes sense to use the default scripts directory, which is automatically created in your application "home" directory.

If you do this you can modify your setenv.sh (or .bat) script like so:

JVM_REQUIRED_ARGS='-Dplugin.resource.directories=/app/home/scripts -Dother.properties...'

You can provide multiple, comma-delimited directories if you want, in which case the resource loader will search them in order until it finds a matching file.


There is no negative performance impact to doing this…​ when the resource is found, it is cached.

Which means that you cannot change your resource and have it instantly reloaded. After changing the resource, you need to edit the web-resource item in the UI, and update, then hard refresh in your browser.

This is not the case when running with -Datlassian.dev.mode=true, in which case reloading should just "just work". Which means you should work on your web resources in a dev environment, then transfer them to your production environment when you are finished.

Modifying CSS

Let’s take as an example the task of modifying the CSS only on the view issue page . A better example would be to wire up the buttons of a custom dialog using a JavaScript resource but let’s start simple.

Go to Admin → Script Fragments → Install Web Resource. Configure the form to look like this:

web resource

Clicking Preview or Update will give you an error at this point, as you have not yet created the resource: test-resources/red-blogposts.css.

In a text editor, create this directory and file under one of the directories you have defined in plugin.resource.directories…​ if you took the advice above then this would be <app.home>/scripts. Enter the contents:

body {
    color: red !important

Now return to the page and click Update. If you still get an error make sure you also create the directory test-resources.

Now go to an existing issue.

It should look like this:

red blog post

How attractive.

Hiding Menu Button Using JavaScript

THis is completely superceded by the built-in script Hide UI Element Built-In Script - however it’s here as an example of including javascript and manipulating the UI.

Let’s take an example that uses JavaScript to hide "Clone" menu button for a specific project. End of this exercise "Clone" link will be invisible for a project with key "JRA". The following immage shows the location of the "Clone" button which we want to hide.

hide clone link before

Copy and paste the content in a text editor and save it as hide-clone-link.js under <app.home>/scripts or under one of the directories you have defined in plugin.resource.directories.

(function ($) {
    $(function () {
         * Binding is required for link such as
         * http://localhost:8080/jira/projects/JRA/issues/JRA-4?filter=allopenissues
        JIRA.bind(JIRA.Events.NEW_CONTENT_ADDED, function (event, $context, reason) { (1)
            if (reason === JIRA.CONTENT_ADDED_REASON.pageLoad || reason === JIRA.CONTENT_ADDED_REASON.panelRefreshed) {


     * Hide the clone menu
    function hideCloneMenuItem() {
        var projectKey = "JRA"; (2)
        var issue = JIRA.Issue.getIssueKey();
        if (typeof (issue) !== "undefined") {
            var currentProject = issue.substr(0, issue.indexOf('-')); (3)
            if (currentProject == projectKey) {
                $("a#clone-issue").hide(); (4)
1 Bind function in "NEW_CONTENT_ADDED" event. More detail is available here: Working with the NEW_CONTENT_ADDED event
2 I am using a project key "JRA" for this example. You need to change the key according to one of your preferred project key.
3 Get the project key from the issue key.
4 Hide the anchor with class "clone-issue" if condition satisfies.


hide clone link

Clicking Preview should show you a valid result. In case of error make sure then file name and provided "Resources" name is same. That’s all. The "Clone" button should be invisible for all the issues in project with key "JRA" after refreshing.


