September 27

See your StoriesOnBoard images in GitHub and Jira issues 🖼️

Images you add to card descriptions can now show up in the linked GitHub and Jira issues too, including on private and workspace-visible story maps. Until now those issues showed a broken image, because opening a StoriesOnBoard image requires a StoriesOnBoard login that GitHub, Jira and the people reading the issue don't have.

Turn it on for a story map

On a next-gen board, a story map admin opens the GitHub or Jira integration settings and, on the General settings tab, checks Allow GitHub to display StoriesOnBoard attachment images (or Allow Jira to display StoriesOnBoard attachment images).
It's off by default, per story map. Nothing changes until an admin turns it on.
Please read the note under the option before you enable it: anyone who can see the synced issues can open the image links without signing in to StoriesOnBoard, regardless of your email-domain or IP restrictions. Turning it off makes the links stop working, but GitHub or the reader's browser may still show copies they have already loaded.

Update the issues you've already synced

When you turn the option on, or enable synchronization while it's on, StoriesOnBoard offers to update the image links in the issues that are already linked to your cards, so you don't have to re-save each card.

Only the issue description is updated. Title, status and release or milestone stay as they are, and your StoriesOnBoard cards don't change.
Before it starts, you see how many issues will be updated and roughly how long it will take. If it would take more than two minutes, you choose: update the image links now, save without updating them, or cancel.
A progress bar shows where it is, and closing the window stops the remaining updates. If GitHub or Jira asks us to slow down, we wait and try again.
At the end you get a summary, with every issue that couldn't be updated listed together with the reason.

What the image links allow

A link only opens images and files of its own story map. It can't be used to browse the map or change anything in it.
The links stop working when you turn the option off, disable synchronization, archive the story map, or when your subscription is inactive. Once everything is back in place, the same links work again, without re-sending anything.
Copying a story map doesn't copy the setting. Linking the story map to a different repository or Jira project turns it off, and the old links stop working for good.

Good to know

GitHub: works with GitHub.com (not GitHub Enterprise Server), for Markdown images and simple HTML image tags.
Jira: works with Jira Cloud, and with Jira Server / Data Center using the Wiki Style Renderer, for standard Markdown images (![alt](link)). Images with a title, reference-style images and HTML image tags aren't supported. Jira only shows an image when no letter or digit touches it, so we add a space between the image and the text next to it when sending it to Jira. An image wrapped in a link doesn't display in Jira's issue view; that's a Jira limitation.
Images can still be blocked on the reader's side, for example by a corporate proxy or by Jira's Default Text Renderer.
If a description is saved but couldn't be synced to the linked issue, the next-gen card editor now says "Description saved, but it could not be synced to the linked issue tracker." instead of "Failed to save description".

Also in this release

Jira description sync, fixed for everyone

These fixes apply to every Jira integration, whether or not you turn on the image option:

No more phantom "changed by Jira" edits. When you saved a description in StoriesOnBoard, the copy coming back from Jira was sometimes recorded as a change made in Jira, with an extra activity entry, a Slack message and even an edit conflict, although nobody touched the issue. Now only real edits made in Jira are recorded.
Code blocks stay as they are. Code blocks no longer gain extra blank lines on every sync.
Image links stay intact. Image links containing -x-, _x_ or __ are no longer turned into strikethrough or italic text when a description comes back from Jira.
Every image on a line reaches Jira. When a line had several StoriesOnBoard images, only the last one was sent to Jira as a full link. Now all of them are.

Updating cards from GitHub no longer unlinks cards when GitHub is busy

When you finish setting up the GitHub integration, click Enable synchronization, or change the Status mapping in the GitHub integration settings on a next-gen board, StoriesOnBoard updates your linked cards from GitHub. If GitHub asked us to slow down during this update, the affected cards were unlinked from their issues, and on large story maps the update could time out.

Now the update runs in small steps with a progress bar. When GitHub asks us to slow down, we wait and continue, and no card is unlinked because of it. Closing the window stops the update, and the cards that weren't updated yet keep their link and content.

Links to feedback ideas open the right page again

The See this idea on feedback management link on cards created from an idea, and the links in mention e-mails and Slack messages about idea and insight comments, sometimes led to an error page. They now open the idea or insight again, and the existing links on your cards have been repaired too.

September 13

Define your story map's color legend with your AI agent

Every story map can give its colors a meaning — Blue becomes Backend (Blue), Green becomes Team A (Green). Until now that legend could only be edited in the UI, so an agent building a map from a document had to stop and ask you to name the colors. Two new MCP tools close that gap:

List story map colors returns the map's colors with their current labels and the default color for each card type.
Update story map color sets or clears a color's label. Duplicate labels are rejected and no card's color changes as a side effect.

Label changes show up live on open next-gen boards, and the agent can use the new labels right away when creating or updating cards. The full agent flow now runs without interruption: create the map, name the colors, define the annotations, create the cards.

Create cards in their final state, in one call

Your agent can now set a subtask's status, priority, business value and effort, and any card's annotations, when it creates the card — no follow-up update needed. Creation is all-or-nothing: an invalid value means no card is created. Everything the agent sets on a new or updated card now appears on open boards instantly, personas and tracking-view position included.

Explicit Save and Cancel when editing cards and release goals

Card descriptions and release goals on next-gen boards used to save when you clicked outside the editor. They now have explicit Save and Cancel buttons right below the editor — Ctrl+Enter (⌘+Enter on Mac) saves, Esc cancels — and clicking anywhere else inside the card leaves your draft as it is.

If you close the card, open another one, switch editors, archive a release or push to Jira, GitHub or Azure DevOps with unsaved changes, you get one simple question: Save, Discard, or Keep editing. A failed save or an edit conflict keeps your draft open so nothing you typed is lost.

Cards unlink automatically when their GitHub issue is deleted

When a linked GitHub issue was deleted, the StoriesOnBoard card kept its link: it still looked synced, still offered "Open in GitHub", and its status couldn't be changed locally. That's fixed. Deleting the issue now unlinks the card, keeps it with all its content, resets it to the map's default status, and lets you edit the status locally or push the card again as a new issue. Cards in the trash lose the stale link too, so restoring them doesn't bring it back.

September 2026