Add relation between issues

[Gotterbild]

It is often case when one issue blocks another. It will be great to have ability to explicitly set this relation.

Right now in the sidebar there is Linked Pull Requests. There can be additional Related issues, and you could mark any issue in this list as blocked by current issue or as a blocking for current issue.

[mattrosno]

I'm also looking for this. Not so much issue dependency, but using issues for both tasks that get completed, and to track user needs over time.

For example, let's say you use a repository to track job stories, jobs to be done, or any flavor of user outcomes that you continuously address. You also have a repository with code and normal issues that get completed per release, sprint, task, etc.

I'm wanting issues to be related to other issues as a named relationship. For example, development tasks are issues that have a custom relation property named "Addresses" where you are able to select one or many job story issues.

In the new table view, you could see which user outcomes are being addressed in each development task. Or you could have a project view with the inverse so you could primarily view the job story issues and which development tasks are addressing each job story.

Custom relations are what make Notion and Airtable so powerful, with the downside of them being separate system of records from where the work is getting done - GitHub.

Unless I'm missing something, per the marketing page, how are relationships getting tracked? Or is it just currently issues referencing other issues in their timelines? If so, that's great as an audit trail, but not so great for product planning / management.

[nebbles]

I came here to either upvote or request this myself. We currently use Shortcut (formerly Clubhouse) for the bulk of our ticket management, but I would love to be able to migrate the team at some point in the future.

Shortcut has the ability to add related issues and designate a particular type in the relation (related/blocking/blocked by/duplicates/duplicated by).

All related issues are then grouped into a neat list for reference (similar to linked PRs in GitHub's side bar)

[coot]

An idea to consider would be to add a field type (next to Text, SingleSelect, etc) which allows to list multiple issues or PRs. The meaning of it would be left to the user, e.g. what kind of relation is it.

[willeccles]

This is a key missing feature for me as well. Since projects can span multiple repositories, one should also be able to mark an issue as dependent on an issue in another repository.

[macnicnac]

Exactly also looking for this!

[samhld]

I'm also looking for this!

[omerbensaadon]

Hey folks! We're working on a more robust implementation of precisely this!

For now, you can use Task lists for this functionality:

https://docs.github.com/en/issues/tracking-your-work-with-issues/about-task-lists

[michael-hawker]

I think that may cover some scenarios, but not all. For instance, I may want to link an issue specifically to its "Parent" issue.

So being able to have a custom field type of 'issue' for instance and let me select/link to an issue as a value of that field would be great for that.

But it may also just be a list of other random PRs/issues/discussions that I want to track as 'related'. A task list may cover that but has to live in the issue somewhere vs. just being part of the project board the team uses.

[JavierSegoviaCordoba]

@omerbensaadon any update?

[Gary-H9]

👋 @omerbensaadon same question as above - is there any update? Even if this is no longer being looked at it would be good to know that's the case.

Echoing the above I think this would offer real value. This is something our product/delivery managers expect if they migrate from JIRA or ZenHub.

[danielgomezrico]

This is a blocked beta that is not accepting new users, so maybe this will not fix the requirement

[maliberty]

@omerbensaadon can you give an update on the plans beyond task lists? The "For now" is 1.5 years old

[robopzet]

As far as I understand task lists do not allow the definition of specific relationships, they are just links in the text.
Still waiting for a way to define dependencies between issues and view them, e.g. in a tree or gantt chart, or at least an ordered list.

[michael-hawker]

I generally find myself going to two separate issues and having them reference each other to get the nice link to appear in the feed of each:

This doesn't scale well beyond linking two issues together. Especially, as it's one sided, if someone just mentions an issue in their comment like this:

It only gets visibility more on the feed of the other linked issue:

It'd be really nice for the side panel to have a complete list of issues that are referencing this one and that this one references:

For the above example, from this issue, I would just have a summary and see a list of related issues something like:

• WinUI Packaged projects throws Markup.XamlParseException: 'XAML parsing failed.'  microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml#6452 (currently buried in a comment)
• Unable to consume custom and/or templated control using nuget packages in WinUi 3 C#/.Net microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml#7830 (down at the bottom of the issue in the feed)

[dachosen1]

I'm also looking for this feature. Is the GitHub product team monitoring this discussion? It seems that this issue has been outstanding for quite some time, yet the feature still doesn't exist.

[joeyfigaro]

Issue dependencies have been requested since 2014 with no real movement, unfortunately.

[JyotiBB]

It seems interesting to learn that the Projects and Issues team might be considering adding a dependency to an issue.

[harrisonhoward]

Issue relationships are important for projects of any size. If I have an issue that can't be completed due to a dependency on a different issue. I have no way of linking those together other than "mentioning" it in the comments.

Tracking these isn't possible. I think a good example of a good way to implement an issue tracker is JIRA, the platform is more advanced but the simplicity of linking issues is something GitHub would benefit from, especially for smaller projects. The growth of the projects is being held back by this very simple feature.

[joeyfigaro]

If the product team needs inspiration on how this could/might work, Linear does a beautiful job of managing relationships between tickets.

[AleixMT]

Thank you for the Linear recommendation, if you use the GitHub integration I think it does the job. I also think that the team could use some inspiration from GitLab, since this feature is completely implemented there:

[RokeJulianLockhart]

GitLab supports this, as https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/c03c1be71de6f26f19862ee203084717dbf4c792/doc/user/project/issues/related_issues.md#add-a-linked-issue explains. I suggest that you move there. I have.

[kelly-sovacool]

Trello does this very well, it would be nice to have similar functionality for GitHub Projects with the roadmap view.

[AleixMT]

I have been waiting for this feature for years...

It feels annoying that we can track all types of things in GitHub but we can't define dependency relations between issues. Do I really need to move all my project organization to Trello for a bunch of arrows? Please, add this feature to GitHub projects ASAP if you are so kind.

[RokeJulianLockhart]

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/4928#discussioncomment-10222679

@AleixMT, why Trello specifically, rather than GitLab, per https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/4928#discussioncomment-9881307? I'm not aware of Trello providing source control.

[AleixMT]

It is true @RokeJulianLockhart that GitLab does a better job than GitHub at managing the projects plus it has source control. That is definitely the best option if you just started using GitHub.

The thing is that probably not everyone wants to move all of his repos into GitLab only because the lack of this feature in GitHub. We can keep using GitHub for everything else and then use a third tool such as Trello to manage the issues of the project. Due to reading this discussion I also discovered Linear, which seems very good at managing the project and being integrated with GitHub.

[falvius]

+1

In my opinion, GitHub projects would benefit a lot from these relations links.

Especially because these are basic features for other project tools (like Redmine, Codebeamer, Polarion, Jira, etc..).

New fields like these should be possible and are high in value:

• issue A is a child or parent from issue B
• issue A is related to issue B (...in some way, but for starters "just related" would for me suffice)

[loeffel-io]

Please! 🙏

[nick-bisonai]

ended up here while looking for the functionality, would be great to have this feature

[azenMatt]

Hi everyone - we currently have a beta in progress for this! You can see more info here:

• Sub-issues Private Beta #131957

Access to that beta also give you access to:

• Issue Types Private Beta: Feedback wanted! #112806
• Issues: Index, Create and Show page updates #132506

If you would like to join this beta - please let me know your organization names below and I can add you in. I will add a reaction to your comment once I have added you. Thanks! and please share your feedback once you have tried it!

[navasvarela]

Thank you @azenMatt , please give access to the beta for https://github.com/NillionNetwork

[azenMatt]

We now have an automated way for you to get access if you sign up via the changelog here https://github.blog/changelog/2024-10-01-evolving-github-issues-public-preview/

you should get added within 24-48 hours.

If you have a request above which hasn't been added yet please just sign up and then you will get added 🎉

[nholthaus]

please add https://github.com/nholthaus

[ruca-sential]

Please add to the projects under https://github.com/orgs/Passential to this beta. The users are: ruca-sential & CS-Passential. Thank you!!

[stbrody]

Sub-issues is a great feature and I'm excited for it to roll out. But IMO that's not the same as relations between issues. There are lots of different types of relationships I may want to express between issues beyond just parent/child relationships. For example: is blocking / is blocked by, duplicate of / is duplicated by, is related to, documents / is documented by, tests / is tested by, etc

[loeffel-io]

hey @azenMatt, thanks for inviting! there is an bug i think

[loeffel-io]

now it works somehow, but it would be really great so see the hierarchy in the board

[loeffel-io]

a view like this would be a game changer btw

https://trello.com/power-ups/6333f76a988ceb01e68c006e/dependencies-graph

[azenMatt]

you should be able to customise what you can see on the board in the views 'field' menu:

here you can pick to see the parent issue. Or the roll up for progress

[maliberty]

@azenMatt what is the timeline to release to production? I'm trying to see if I want to beta or just wait. Thanks.

[azenMatt]

not long, a few weeks maybe

[azenMatt]

Hi all - this is now in public preview! https://github.blog/changelog/2024-10-01-evolving-github-issues-public-preview/

Please sign up using that link if you would like access :)

[wodow]

OP's original question is about issues blocking issues, but "block" doesn't appear in that blog post. Can we use the new issues features to record one issue blocking another?

[scottconnerly]

github/roadmap#956 looks like it got pushed back to 2025 Q2. Is that accurate @azenMatt ?