How it works

When the limit is checked. On every transition that has the Personal WIP limit rule, when the work item moves into a status in the In Progress category and comes from a status that is not In Progress. Moving between two In Progress statuses, for example from In Progress to In Review, never counts as starting work. A work item created straight into an In Progress status is not checked.

Who is counted. The work item’s assignee after the move, including a new assignee set on the transition screen. Unassigned work items are never blocked.

What is counted. The assignee’s other work items in a status of the In Progress category. When counting across all projects, every project counts except projects with a limit of 0. When counting per project, only the work item’s own project counts. Statuses in the To Do and Done categories never count.

The limit. When counting per project: the project’s own limit if one is set, otherwise the default limit. When counting across all projects: always the default limit, because one person has one limit; a project limit of 0 still switches checks off in that project and leaves its work items out of every count, and other project limits apply only when counting per project. People in an exempt group have no limit.

What people see. If the assignee is at their limit, Jira shows: “ has reached the limit of work items in progress. Finish or move one of them before starting another.” When counting per project it says “in progress in this project”. If the name cannot be read, it says “This person”. When people move their own work item, the message starts with “You have reached your limit”. The work item stays where it was. This also applies to moves made through automation or the REST API on transitions with the rule.

When the app cannot check. If Jira does not answer, or the app’s license is not active, the move goes ahead. The app never stops people working because of its own problem.

The overview. Counts work items in an In Progress status per person, using the admin’s own access to Jira. It counts up to 2,000 work items and shows up to 100 people, those closest to or over their limit first; people beyond the 2,000 work items may be missing. People in exempt groups are still listed in the overview. Limits themselves are always checked in full.

Limits. - A limit can be from 1 to 50; up to 200 project limits and 20 exempt groups. - Jira’s search is updated within moments of a change, so work items moved a moment earlier, or two moves started at the same time for the same person, may not be counted yet. Limits are a guardrail, not a hard guarantee. - The app counts the work items it can see. If a permission scheme or issue security level hides work items from apps, those are not counted.

Changing settings. Saved settings apply within a minute.

What Personal WIP Limits stores. Only its settings. It makes no calls outside Atlassian.