Rovo Dev by Atlassian: An AI Coding Agent to Automate Repetitive Dev Tasks
- Nishant
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Atlassian is a well-known name in project management, used worldwide by software development teams. The software company's project management tool, Jira, and its collaboration platform, Confluence, dominate the market. Now, Atlassian is extending its reach directly into the developer's terminal with the release of Rovo Dev, an AI coding agent.
Rovo Dev could become one of the biggest product introductions for the company's nearly half a million users in the Atlassian ecosystem, offering them a tool that's deeply integrated with the platforms they already use daily.
Rovo Dev can automate repetitive tasks and simplify the development workflow, which is a proposition that will likely appeal to countless companies, including many Fortune 500s, that have built their development processes around Atlassian's products.
What is Atlassian's Rovo Dev AI Coding Agent?
Rovo Dev by Atlassian was once an internal AI agent that has been made available to the public. Rovo Dev is available as a command-line interface (CLI) tool designed for developers who are most comfortable and productive in a terminal environment.
It's tightly integrated with the Atlassian stack, customized for the terminal, and built with the actual needs of developers in mind. For teams that live inside Jira, Confluence, and Bitbucket, this might be the first agent that actually fits into their day-to-day workflows without forcing them to adopt something new.
Rovo Dev functions as an intelligent partner that can help with different coding tasks. The AI coding agent can understand and navigate the existing code to generate, refactor, and debug new code. The idea is to reduce the context switching that developers so often face, allowing them to remain in their terminal while interacting with the broader Atlassian suite.
Here are some of the main features and functions of Rovo Dev:
Code Understanding and Navigation: Rovo Dev can give insights into a codebase, generate documentation, and offer explanations of code, all without the developer needing to leave their terminal.
Development Acceleration: The AI coding agent is made to speed up the development cycle by offering AI-assisted code completion, suggestions for refactoring, automated testing, and interactive debugging.
Atlassian Ecosystem Integration: It connects with Jira issues and Confluence documentation, which allows developers to manage their tasks and update documentation directly from the command line.
Security and Administration: Rovo Dev includes features for permission controls, user access management through role-based permissions, and monitoring of resource utilization and costs.
Extensibility and Customization: The tool allows for the configuration of tool permissions and can be extended by connecting to a user's own MCP server to fit specific team needs.
How to get started with Rovo Dev:
Step 1: To try the Rovo Dev CLI beta for free, sign up for the Atlassian AI innovation page.
Step 2: Rovo Dev agent is available as an extension to install Rovo Dev:
Install ACLI (or update to the latest version) using instructions for your OS: macOS, Linux, or Windows.
Go to your Atlassian account and create an unscoped API token by selecting Create API token.
Step 3: To authorize your Atlassian account, run the following in your terminal:
acli rovodev auth loginRun this command to open Rovo Dev in interactive mode (IM):
acli rovodev run
Teams that have started using the Rovo Dev CLI have reported that it has quickly become a part of their daily routine. Developers are using it to offload tasks such as code navigation, implementing new features, and generating documentation. The agent is also proving to be a valuable assistant for understanding new codebases and for helping with complex code migrations, all within the familiar terminal environment.
Rovo Dev can help developers maintain their focus and work more efficiently by reducing the need to jump between different tools and interfaces.
