Validate Checklist Items before Issue Transition

Contents 👇🏼

All checklist items completed Validator

We have introduced a built-in checklist completion validator that can prevent the Jira issue from transitioning to the next state if not all Smart Checklist items are checked.

There is a simple way to configure and add it to the workflow.

Set up Validator

1. Go to Project Settings → Workflows.

2. Choose the Workflow you want to add validation to and click Edit workflow:

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   Edit project workflow

3. Add Rule:

3.1 Choose transition and click on “+” for the Rules.

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Add a new rule for the transition to Done

3.2. Choose Smart Checklist for Jira (Pro).

3.3. Select All checklist items completed.

3.4 Click Select.

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All checklist items completed validator in the Marketplace rules

3.5 Configure a Custom message for the validator, or just leave the field empty, and the default message will be used.

3.6 Click Add.

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Configure a Custom message for the validator

3.7 Click Update workflow.

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Workflow with added All checklist items completed validator

✅ You’re all set! Now, if a user tries to transition an issue with incomplete checklist items, Jira will block the transition and display an error message.

Check Validator in action

1. Go to your project Board.

2. Try to transition an issue with not completed checklist.

3. The transition will be blocked, user will see the error message.

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Advanced: Validation via Custom Fields

If you’re not using the Pro app or prefer to customize validation logic, you can use one of the two Smart Checklist custom fields.

Option 1 - Validate on “Smart Checklist Progress” custom field

1. Go to Project Settings → Workflows.

2. Choose the Workflow you want to add validation to and click Edit workflow:

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   Edit project workflow

3. Add Rule:

3.1 Choose transition and click on “+” for the Rules.

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Add a new rule for the transition to Done

3.2. Click Validate details and choose Validate a field.

3.3 Click Select.

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Validate a field

• Validate that field - Matches regular expression

• For this field - Smart Checklist Progress

• Expression 👉🏻 (^$|.*Done)

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Configure Validate a field

3.5 Click Update workflow.

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Update the workflow

✅ You are all set! Jira will now block the transition to Done and show an error if at least one checklist item isn’t completed.

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Checklist has one not completed checklist item - transition to Done failed with error

Option 2 - Validate via the “Checklists” custom field (checks specific item completion)

If you need a validation rule that prevents transitioning to the next status until a specific checklist item, in our example, "Testing is passed successfully" is marked as Done or Skipped, this solution is for you.

Since the initial setup steps have already been covered above, follow the same instructions to navigate to your workflow and add Validate a field.

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Configure Validate a field

4. Then Update workflow.

✅ You are done! If you attempt to move an issue to Done while the item “Testing is passed successfully” is still in To Do or In Progress, Jira will display an error:

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Hope everything works for you! 🚀