Opt-in auto-create

When you track time against many Jira tickets, pre-creating a Kimai project for each is toil. Auto-create lets structure emerge from real work: a Jira key that no project claims yet gets a Kimai project created for it on import.

Enabling it

On the customer's edit form (Customers → edit a customer → Jira):

• jira_autocreate_enabled = on (default off — it creates data).

There is no separate customer setting to choose: auto-created projects are filed under the customer whose config triggered the import (that customer's own Jira). You also still need that customer's jira_import_activity — auto-create makes projects, not activities, so imported entries use the customer's import activity until you set a per-project override.

What happens on import

For a Jira key that no existing project claims:

1. A Kimai project is created, named after the Jira project (from Jira's project name; the bare key if the name can't be read), filed under this customer (the one being imported).
2. The project already claims that key (its Jira project key(s) field is pre-filled), so from the next run on it is an ordinary routed project you can rename, re-parent, or set rates on.
3. The imported worklogs are filed under it (with the customer's import activity).

Guarantees

• Opt-in only — otherwise the importer falls back to the customer's default target and logs why.
• Idempotent — one project per Jira key per run, and re-runs find the existing claim instead of creating duplicates.
• Never destructive / never crashes — a failed creation falls back to the customer's default and is logged; the run continues.
• --dry-run reports the projects it would create without writing anything.
• No activities are auto-created.

See also: per-project routing · importing.