From embedded to everywhere: The new era of apps
Atlassian is making a fundamental change to how we talk about—and build—our core offerings. What you’ve known as “products” like Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket will now be called “Atlassian apps.” This isn’t just a new label. It’s a reflection of a broader shift: everything in our ecosystem, whether it’s built by Atlassian, a Marketplace partner, or a developer, is now considered an app running on the Atlassian platform. You may have already begun seeing these changes reflected across our documentation, navigation, and marketing materials.
You can think of the Atlassian platform as the foundation: the base that every customer starts with. The platform provides enterprise-grade infrastructure and a connected data layer powering every experience that runs on top of it. Crucially, the power of the Atlassian platform doesn’t just benefit apps Atlassian builds. We also enable the developer community to harness its security, scale, and opportunity for innovation through Forge.
On top of this foundation, apps become the essential building blocks of teamwork. Customers assemble their own unique system of work by choosing the apps that best fit their needs. Atlassian-built apps, Marketplace apps, and even custom-developed apps all work together side-by-side.
For Marketplace partners, this shift means your apps are part of the same set of building blocks customers use to create their ideal Atlassian environment. As customers move from buying standalone products to assembling a tailored system of work, every app—whether Atlassian-built or from the Marketplace—is an essential part of how teams get work done on the platform.
Decoupling apps from products
To illustrate, let’s rewind the clock to the time when Atlassian apps were known as “products”, and explore what’s behind the change. Until now, apps have had a strict 1:1 relationship with products. The installation process grants an app access to services like identity, users, and permissions—which actually exist on the platform level, not the product level. We can think of the installation process as a sort of gateway to the platform, via a product. But installing into products also comes with limitations. Apps must install into at least one product—and only one product. When we remove these boundaries, we enable apps to unlock new reach and impact, a shift that is now becoming a reality.
With recent Forge advancements, developers will soon be able to create apps that make multiple connections with other Atlassian apps and parts of the platform. Apps are no longer confined to a single “product”. They can tap directly into core platform capabilities and be present wherever they’re needed. This opens up entirely new possibilities for building richer, more integrated experiences that span the entire Atlassian ecosystem, connecting experiences, data, and workflows in ways that were never before possible.
And the future holds even more possibilities. Our vision is that you’ll be able to build apps that aren’t anchored to any Atlassian app at all: autonomous, purpose-built solutions that live independently within the platform, accessible directly from navigation and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Atlassian’s own offerings. This will give your apps unprecedented visibility and autonomy, allowing you to shape how users engage with them from the very first click.
This shift will also transform the way customers interact with your app. By giving your app its own real estate within the Atlassian platform, right alongside Atlassian’s own apps, customers will be able to move effortlessly between your app and others as they navigate the pieces that make up their system of work.
Powered by the Teamwork Graph
This transformation is made possible by the Teamwork Graph, a powerful data layer that connects people, work, and knowledge across all Atlassian experiences. For the first time, apps will be able to both contribute to and leverage this unified data model, enabling richer integrations and smarter, more contextual experiences for users.
This is especially powerful for Marketplace partners. Many Marketplace apps create data objects that are essential to our customers’ work—things like test cases, diagrams, or timesheets. With Forge, this data can now be pushed into the Teamwork Graph and surfaced directly in Search, Rovo Chat, dashboards, and more. By tapping into the Teamwork Graph, your app becomes part of a living network of relationships and insights that spans the entire platform, increasing its visibility, relevance, and impact in customers’ daily workflows.
Your app will soon also be able to access data in Teamwork Graph, unlocking access to a rich network of information from across Atlassian and other connected apps. This will allow you to build smarter, more personalized experiences, surface relevant insights for users wherever they work, and create solutions that are deeply integrated into the fabric of the Atlassian platform.
A roadmap for the journey ahead
We’ve already begun to ship extensibility features that make this future vision a reality, and developers can expect to see these capabilities come into sharper focus in the coming months.
What’s available now
| Feature | Description | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Forge Rovo agents and actions | Build interactive apps by integrating custom AI agents that interpret prompts using LLMs and perform tasks through predefined actions. | Generally available. See Rovo Agent and Rovo Actions. |
| Connecting to multiple Atlassian apps | Enable your app to connect to multiple Atlassian apps. | Currently in EAP. Sign up to join the EAP.Moving to Preview in October. |
| Add data to Teamwork Graph with connectors | Build custom Teamwork Graph connectors to ingest your app data into the Graph and make the data available to customers in platform experiences like Chat, Search and Agents. | Currently in EAP. Sign up to join the EAP.Moving to Preview soon.See Connecting to Teamwork Graph. |
| Automations | Extend the Atlassian Automation Platform and add new Forge-based actions to the Automation Platform. | Currently in EAP. Sign up to join the EAP. |
What’s coming soon
| Feature | Description | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| Access data in Teamwork Graph | Allow your app to access and consume data from Teamwork Graph in your own apps. | EAP coming soon. Sign up to join the EAP.See Connecting to Teamwork Graph. |
| Forge apps that install directly on the platform | Build apps that aren’t anchored to any Atlassian app at all, and instead live independently within the platform. | The first milestone for standalone apps, Confluence full page module, is currently in EAP and moving to Preview in October. Sign up to join the EAP. Additionally, Jira full page module will be available for Preview in November.Over the coming months, we will continue to rollout additional features that support this user experience and installation model. Stay tuned via the Forge roadmap. |
Partners in progress
This evolution marks a new chapter for everyone building on our platform, and Marketplace apps and custom-built solutions are at the heart of it. Your solutions are no longer extensions to single Atlassian apps. They’re at the core of how teams will shape, connect, and elevate their work.
With the boundaries between experiences dissolving and with new capabilities on the horizon made possible with Forge, the opportunities for innovation have never been greater. Now, your apps can occupy their own real estate within the Atlassian platform, empowering customers to discover, access, and combine the tools they need—creating a system of work that’s truly tailored to them.
We’re just at the beginning of this journey. As our language and architecture evolve, the opportunities for apps will continue to expand, and we can’t wait to see how you’ll help define what’s possible.
Stay tuned for more updates as these capabilities roll out, and join us as we unlock the next era of innovation on the Atlassian platform.