Hi Atlassian,
Can you suggest methods for how Marketplace vendors will be able to test, after March 2026, the upgrade path from Connect to Forge? For example, can Atlassian flag dev-only instances to allow them to continue to install private versions of Connect apps, even after the cutoff?
Prior communications suggest that it will become impossible to install Connect apps on an instance after March 2026.
As a vendor, the lack of ability to install Connect apps ourselves on test instances creates a blind spot, because we will no longer be able to test the Connect-to-Forge upgrade path.
I am aware that Connect-on-Forge apps can still be deployed after that date, but Connect-on-Forge apps are not identical to Connect apps. I imagine that they are fairly close, but various nuances with the upgrade procedure make it highly desirable to be able to test the actual upgrade path from Connect, not just from Connect-on-Forge.
Why is this a concern?
For example, many vendors already have customers stuck on much older pure-Connect versions of the app (due to past permissions escalations). When they finally upgrade, it needs to work.
Some vendors may also prefer to one-shot the upgrade directly from all-Connect to all-Forge without an intermediate Connect-on-Forge app. For various blockers, I already see some Forge delivery deadlines starting to slip into Q1CY2026, which makes a March 2026 launch unlikely for those who are impacted. Those apps will not be feature complete (and thus final Connect-to-Forge upgrades cannot be fully tested) until after March 2026.
Even in the case where a vendor releases a Connect-on-Forge app in the interim, there is no guarantee that all customers will be able to upgrade to it anyway (again due to potential permissions escalation issues), so there is still a gap.
In short, we need to find a way to test this. Vendors need a way to install a Connect app on a site, upgrade it to Forge, and then potentially repeat this process many times. I am writing six months in advance with the hopes that Atlassian has enough time to figure out a good way to accommodate this.
Thanks for listening!