JIRA Ticket Search in Google Chrome OmniBox

With the instructions below, you will be able to type jira modules-3333 into the OmniBox and it will take you directly to the ticket.

What's the Omnibox, you ask? It's the bar at the top of the browser page that displays the URL where you are at this moment. In Chrome, it's also a place where you can set all kinds of search options. (For more options than I go into here, see the MakeUseOf article called 11 Quick Tricks to Become a Chrome Omnibox Power User.)

Here's how to add your local JIRA instance as a search engine in Google Chrome. Note: Other browsers will differ.

• Click Settings.
• Under the Search section, click Manage search engines…

• Scroll all the way to the bottom where the empty text boxes appear.

• In Add a new search engine, type JIRA.
• In Keyword, type jira.
  • (Keyword is case sensitive, so remember what you put here. Better yet, stick to lowercase when creating your search engine keywords.)
• In URL with %s in place of query, add https://tickets.puppetlabs.com/jira/secure/QuickSearch.jspa?searchString=%s (you can use this URL to search public Puppet JIRA tickets).
• Click Done.

Now you can start searching!

Start typing jira modules-3399 (or a ticket relevant to your JIRA instance) into the Omnibox and it should take you directly to the ticket.

Some quirks I’ve noticed:

• Keyword is case sensitive. If your keyword is jira, then using Jira or JIRA will not work.
• You can’t cut and paste the query into the Omnibox, as it does not trigger the search engine. The keyword has to be typed in manually for it to work. Remember to put in a space after you type jira to trigger the query.

Craig Gomes is an engineering manager at Puppet.