Background

Work item watchers are notified at every approval status change: the start of an approval and every step decision. One setting, Settings → Notifications → "Watcher notifications", covers all of it, all or nothing. In sequential approvals this notifies people the moment an approval starts, although they cannot act until earlier steps are done, and the only way to stop it is to silence everything.

The setting's description is also wrong: it says watchers are notified "each time an approval step is resolved" and that this can be overridden per step, while it also controls the "Approval Path 'X' was started by Y" email, which no per step setting can suppress.

Goal

Let an administrator turn off the "approval started" watcher notification without silencing the rest, globally and per approval definition.

Functional description

Settings → Notifications (Jira only). "Watcher notifications" stays as the master switch and gains a list of events, each independently on or off, all on by default:

• An approval is started

• A step is approved, rejected, abstained or voted on

With the master switch off the list stays visible but inactive, and the selection is preserved. The description is rewritten to match the actual behavior.

Approval definition. A new "Watcher notifications" collapsible section in definition settings, next to the existing "Webhook notifications" one, overrides "an approval is started" for approvals started from this definition. This event has no per step control today. A definition can only turn the event off; leaving it on means the global setting applies. The value is read when the approval is created, so editing a definition does not affect approvals already in progress.

The existing per step checkbox "Enable notifications for Work item watchers" keeps working and controls the step level event for its own step.

Out of scope

• "A step is updated or reassigned": no such notification exists today.

• "An approval is completed or rejected": the last step's decision email is the completion message; a switch for it comes with AP-2423.

Acceptance criteria

1. An upgraded instance notifies watchers exactly as before, with no admin action required.

2. An admin can turn off "An approval is started" globally and keep step decisions; watchers get nothing at start, approvers still get their "action required" email.

3. Turning off the master switch stops all watcher notifications; turning it back on restores the previously selected events.

4. A definition can turn off the start notification independently of the global setting, and approvals from that definition follow it.

5. A definition that leaves the start notification on follows the global setting.

6. A step whose per step checkbox is off sends no watcher notification when that step is decided, even when the step event is enabled globally.

7. The setting's description matches its behavior, including that it covers the start of an approval.