Sidebar panel for Confluence content pages (like native comments sidebar)

Confluence Development Confluence Cloud
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Help needed: Sidebar panel for Confluence content pages (like native comments sidebar)

Hi Forge community,
I’m hoping someone has worked this out before, because I’m sure there’s some kind of solution here.

What we’re trying to achieve

We’re looking to enhance Confluence’s native comment functionality with some custom interactions on content pages. The ideal UX would be similar to how inline comments appear - a persistent sidebar panel next to the page content where users can interact with custom UI elements.

Like a native Confluence comments sidebar, but with our own custom content and action buttons.

The Problem: I cannot find a Forge module that allows for creation of a sidebar panel on Confluence content pages despite the native UI having the inline comments sidebar.

What we’ve tried:

  • confluence:contentAction - Adds menu items that open modals where we then show the custom UI content (works, but not particularly useful unless seen alongside and able to link to the page content)

  • confluence:contentBylineItem - Using a small indicator under the page title to also open the modal

Other related things:

  1. The webpanel module from forge connect
  2. This server add-on: Talk for Confluence - Talk Add-on for Confluence - StiltSoft Docs

Questions for the community

  1. Has anyone successfully created a persistent sidebar panel on Confluence content pages using Forge? If so, which module type?

  2. Is there a creative workaround for achieving sidebar-like UX in Confluence Cloud? Maybe by using a macro?

  3. Are there plans to add a confluence:contentPanel or similar sidebar module to Forge?

What would be ideal

A Forge module like confluence:contentPanel or confluence:pageSidebar that:

  • Renders in a sidebar next to page content

  • Can be toggled visible/hidden by users

  • Supports Custom UI for complex interactions

Has anyone solved this or found a good workaround? Any pointers would be hugely appreciated!

Thanks!