# Stash Latest (2.9) : Using custom JIRA issue keys with Stash

Added by pwatson , edited by pwatson on Apr 16, 2013

Stash assumes that JIRA issue keys are of the default format (that is, two or more uppercase letters (`[A-Z][A-Z]+`), followed by a hyphen and the issue number, for example STASH-123). By default, Stash will not recognise custom JIRA issue key formats.

You can use custom JIRA issue key formats with Stash by editing either the `<Stash installation directory>/bin/setenv.sh` or `<Stash installation directory>/bin/setenv.bat` file, depending upon the OS platform.
To override the default issue key format, pass the -Dstash.jira.key.pattern=<some different regex> parameter to the JVM_SUPPORT_RECOMMENDED_ARGS property, like this:

    JVM_SUPPORT_RECOMMENDED_ARGS="-Dstash.jira.key.pattern=(<Some different regex>)"

For example, to use lowercase letters in issue keys, use a regex as in:

    -Dstash.jira.key.pattern="((?<!([a-z]{1,10})-?)[a-z]+-\d+)"

You will need to restart Stash.

Stash will index JIRA issues from this point onwards. If you want to re-index pre-existing commits in Stash you will have to delete the cached index in the Stash home directory, located at `<Stash home directory>/caches/idx-snapshots.`

As always, please back up your home directory (and perhaps the database) before performing any manual operation on Stash. Consider testing this change on another copy of Stash before using it in production.