Swimlane WIP Limits
| Where configured | «Board Settings» → «Swimlanes» → «Configure WIP Limits» |
| Where visible | Board (detail view) |
| Settings apply to | For the whole team |
Purpose
Give each swimlane row its own work-in-progress cap. Optionally narrow counting to specific issue types per lane. Complements column-group limits for layered WIP control.
Top: Team Frontend — 2 issues, limit 5 (within limit). Bottom: Team Backend — 4 issues, limit 3 (overload, red highlight).
How to configure
Where to find settings
- Open «Board settings».
- Go to the «Swimlanes» tab.
- Set Jira's swimlane strategy to «Custom» using the native swimlane strategy control. This feature requires «Custom» strategy.
- Click «Configure WIP Limits».
How to configure
In the modal, each swimlane on the board has a row where you can:
- Set a limit: enter the maximum number of issues allowed in the swimlane.
- Choose issue types: optionally narrow counting to specific issue types (Bug, Task, Story, etc.).
Click «OK» to save all changes, or «Cancel» to discard.
How to use
- When a swimlane has a limit, its header displays a count / limit badge.
- If the lane exceeds its limit, the header is highlighted in red to draw attention.
- Lanes without an active limit behave like normal Jira swimlanes.
- Completed issues are excluded from counting; subtask handling follows the same board-wide convention as other WIP features.
Usage scenarios
- "I want to set a separate WIP limit for each swimlane."
- "I want to count only bugs in a specific swimlane toward its WIP limit."
- "I want to see at a glance which swimlanes are overloaded."