You’re not doing anything wrong with the ADF itself the issue is where you’re passing it.
In the “Perform an issue transition” action, the field Body → update → comment does not accept a full ADF doc object, even though the error message implies it does. That parameter only works reliably with plain text, and the connector does not correctly serialize ADF comments during transitions. Because of that,
Jira keeps rejecting the payload with:
"Operation value must be an Atlassian Document"
even when the JSON is valid ADF.
What actually works
The reliable workaround is to split the operation into two steps:
Add the comment first
Use “Add a comment to an issue” (this action does support ADF properly).
JSON{ "type": "doc", "version": 1, "content": [ { "type": "paragraph", "content": [ { "type": "text", "text": "agent comments added" } ] } ]}
Then perform the transition
Call “Perform an issue transition” with only the transition ID.
This satisfies Jira’s “mandatory comment” requirement because the comment already exists before the transition is executed.
Why this happens
- Jira REST API supports ADF
- Jira UI enforces mandatory comments
- Power Automate Jira connector does not correctly handle ADF in the transition comment payload
So even though the schema suggests it should work, it doesn’t in practice (this is a known connector limitation).
Summary
- Your ADF format is correct
- Body/update/comment in Perform an issue transition is broken for ADF
- Add comment first → transition second (works consistently)
- Until the connector is fixed, this two‑step approach is the only reliable solution.
