A post-checkout git hook that automatically sets your jira ticket to "in progress". The Jira ticket number must be in the branch name (i.e. feature/WEB-1234_fix_for_an_issue). Could be modified to set all other "in progress" tickets to no in progress with a little effort.

post-checkout

#!/usr/bin/env python

import distutils.spawn
import sys
import re


if '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages' not in sys.path:
    sys.path.insert(0, '/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages')


if '/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages' not in sys.path:
    sys.path.insert(0, '/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages')


from jira.client import JIRA
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE  # , call

GIT_PATH = distutils.spawn.find_executable('git')
TICKET_REGEXP = re.compile(r"(?P<ticket>[A-Z]+-\d+)")    # WEB-12345


# call git in command line
def call_git(command, args, input=None):
    return Popen([GIT_PATH, command] + args, stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE).communicate(input)[0]


def get_creds():
    for line in call_git('config', ['--list']).split('\n'):
        if 'jira.username' in line:
            jira_username = line.split('=')[1]
        elif 'jira.password' in line:
            jira_password = line.split('=')[1]
    return (jira_username, jira_password)


def issue_exists(issue):
    try:
        issue = jira.issue(issue)
        return True
    except:
        pass
    return False


def start_progress(name):
    if issue_exists(name):
        issue = jira.issue(name)
        transitions = jira.transitions(issue)
        start_id = None

        for trans in transitions:
            if trans['name'] == 'Start Progress':
                start_id = trans['id']

        if not start_id:
            return

        jira.transition_issue(issue, start_id)


def get_branch():
    branch_name = None
    for branch in call_git('branch', ['--no-color']).split('\n'):
        if branch.startswith('*'):
            branch_name = branch.split()[1]
    return branch_name


username, password = get_creds()
if not username or not password:
    print "Must setup your jira username and password with git config: "
    print "  git config --global jira.username harry"
    print "  git config --global jira.password potter"
    sys.exit(1)

options = {
    'server': 'http://jira.domain.com'
}

branch_name = get_branch()
if branch_name:
    match = TICKET_REGEXP.search(branch_name)
    if match:
        ticket = match.group('ticket')
        jira = JIRA(options, basic_auth=(username, password))
        start_progress(ticket)