🪶 Quill (Query-based Unified Issue Lightweight Linker)

quill syncs GitHub issues and comments from multiple public repositories to an on-premise Jira instance. It is fully stateless — no local database or state file needed.

How the stateless design works

Each synced Jira issue gets the original GitHub issue URL stored in a Jira custom field (e.g., customfield_10200). On every sync run, quill queries Jira via JQL to discover which issues are already synced, then creates or updates as needed.

A content hash is embedded as an invisible footer in the Jira description (<!-- quill:sha256:... -->), enabling fast change detection without full-text diffing.

Features

• Multi-repository sync: Map multiple GitHub repos to specific Jira projects.
• Stateless: No local database — works natively in GitHub Actions without caching hacks.
• Incremental updates: SHA256 content hashes detect changes to title, body, labels, or state.
• State transitions: Optionally closes Jira issues when GitHub issues are closed.
• Comment sync: Comments are attributed (e.g., "@user commented on GitHub").
• Dry-run mode: Preview changes without writing to Jira.
• Minimal dependencies: PyGithub, python-jira, pydantic, pyyaml, rich, and stdlib argparse.

Installation

pixi install

This creates a Conda environment, installs all dependencies, and links the quill package in editable mode.

Configuration

quill is configured via a YAML file (see quill.yaml.example):

github:
  token: ${GITHUB_TOKEN}
  repos:
    - owner: your-org
      repo: your-repo
      jira_project: CAS
      sync_labels: true
      sync_comments: true
      issue_filter:
        labels: ["bug", "enhancement"]
        state: open
        since: "2024-01-01"

jira:
  server: https://jira.example.com
  token: ${JIRA_PAT}
  verify_ssl: true
  default_issue_type: Task
  github_link_field: customfield_10200   # custom field for GitHub URL

sync:
  dry_run: false
  batch_size: 50

Jira custom field setup

You need a custom field in Jira (type: URL or Text) to store the GitHub issue link. Set github_link_field in the config to the field's internal ID (e.g., customfield_10200). Ask your Jira admin if you don't have one.

Usage

# Generate a template config
pixi run quill init

# Test connectivity to GitHub and Jira
pixi run quill check

# Run synchronization
pixi run quill sync

# Sync a specific repo only
pixi run quill sync --repo your-org/your-repo

# Dry run — preview without writing
pixi run quill sync --dry-run

# Show synced issue counts (queries Jira)
pixi run quill status

Or using pixi tasks directly:

pixi run sync
pixi run check
pixi run status
pixi run test