Sub-issues Private Beta

[azenMatt]

Please note that right now this is a limited beta and as we scale it out further we will provide more information on how to join. Thanks!

Feedback wanted

Thank you for participating in the sub-issues private beta which comes alongside the brand new Issues experience ✨ and the Issue Types private beta ✨. Please leave your feedback below on what is working well, any bugs you encounter, and what else you’d like to see!

You can also visit discussions on the new issues experience and issue types to provide your feedback on those experiences.

Sub-issues

Sub-issues are designed to help you group and manage your issues with a parent/child relationship into a hierarchy.

Adding sub-issues

Any existing issue, where you have write access or above, will now have a 'create sub-issue' option, you can also use the drop down to opt to create an existing issue instead:

Alternatively, you will notice a new relationship section on the sidebar, allowing you to add from a child to a parent.

Viewing sub-issues

As you create sub-issues, you will start building a nested hierarchy of issues under your opening comment.

Clicking one of these issues now allows you to explore them directly from the main issue page via a slide out panel, making it easy to add a comment or update meta-data without losing context.

Working with sub-issues in projects

We have a couple of new fields in projects, sub-issue progress - which gives you a customisable (check out the settings page) progress pill or bar to see how your issues are progressing:

And parent issue - helping you see what the parent item of each issue is. Which works especially well in a group by or slice by format:

We will also shortly release a new workflow to keep a all child issues synced with a project which the parent already belongs to.

Webhooks

Sub-issue webhooks can be enabled at the repository or organization level and can be enabled/disabled separately from issue events.

Webhook events are now fired for the following actions:

• Sub-issue added
• Sub-issue removed
• Parent issue added
• Parent issue removed

GraphQL API

Sub-issues can also be managed via the GraphQL API. Note that these requests will need to include the GraphQL-Features header with a value of sub_issues.

Click to view Fields and Mutations

Fields

subIssuesSummary

Summary of the state of an issue's sub-issues

query summary {
  node(id: "I_123") {
    ... on Issue {
      subIssuesSummary {
        total
        completed
        percentCompleted
      }
    }
  }
}

parent

The parent entity of the issue.

query parent {
  node(id: "I_456") {
    ... on Issue {
      parent {
        title
      }
    }
  }
}

subIssues

A list of sub-issues associated with the Issue.

query subIssues {
  node(id: "I_123") {
    ... on Issue {
      subIssues(first: 10) {
        nodes {
          title
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Mutations

addSubIssue

Adds a sub-issue to a given issue

If you'd like to replace the exist parent of a sub-issue, provide replaceParent: true

mutation addSubIssue {
  addSubIssue(input: { issueId: "I_123", subIssueId: "I_456" }) {
    issue {
      title
    }
    subIssue {
      title
    }
  }
}

removeSubIssue

Removes a sub-issue from a given issue

mutation removeSubIssue {
  removeSubIssue(input: { issueId: "I_123", subIssueId: "I_456" }) {
    issue {
      title
    }
    subIssue {
      title
    }
  }
}

reprioritizeSubIssue

Reprioritizes a sub-issue to a different position in the parent list.

mutation reprioritizeSubIssue {
  reprioritizeSubIssue(
    input: { issueId: "I_123", subIssueId: "I_456", afterId: "I_789" }
  ) {
    issue {
      title
    }
  }
}

Sub-issue limits

A couple of limits we have implemented that we would love feedback on:

• Sub-issue depth limit: 8
• Max sub-issues per level: 50
• Parents are unique ( an issue can only have one parent)

Next Steps

We would love your feedback on sub-issues and the new issues experience in general as your try it out! Please let us know what you think! 🎉

[abdonrd]

How could I access this beta? Thanks!

[azenMatt]

Hi @abdonrd - we are in the very early stages here, as we progress I will share more details of how you can opt-in to the beta. Thanks for your patience 😄

[abdonrd]

Ok, thanks @azenMatt!

[Aarbel]

@azenMatt, very interested too !

[matejminar]

We will also shortly release a new workflow to keep a all child issues synced with a project which the parent already belongs to.

Looking forward to this! 👏👏

[azenMatt]

This is now live in the workflows section!

[typed-sigterm]

Is this the successor of Task List? Looking forward to this 👍

[lishaduck]

From the linked issue (emphasis added):

We are building this as a replacement for the Tasklists beta. We have heard your feedback on this experience and are going to relaunch with a new look and feel to make it faster and easier to create, manage and work with parent / child relationships in Issues and Projects.

I guess so. It looks nice, but I do hope this doesn't mean that draft issues/tasks without issues aren't being killed off.

[umhan35]

How do those issues show in the board view?

[azenMatt]

like this:

[beingminimal]

@azenMatt Our teams heavily relies on Tasklists for managing complex projects across multiple GitHub organizations. We're eager to adopt the upcoming sub-issues and issue types feature to enhance our workflow significantly. We request early access to the beta program to provide valuable feedback. Thank You.

[beingminimal]

@azenMatt Can you please share roadmap view also, and that view also going to support tree view of subissues?

[beingminimal]

@azenMatt Can you please share roadmap view also, and that view also going to support tree view of subissues?

@azenMatt any possibilities to share screenshot of this?

[beingminimal]

@azenMatt can we have access now please?

[evi-liu]

Hi @beingminimal. I've just flagged in your orgs into the private beta. We currently don't support Dependencies (blocking/blocked by) or the tree view just yet.

[glennsc]

@evi-liu Any word on the Dependencies (blocking/blocked by) features yet?

[daniel-farina]

Hello,
Can we please get access to this beta, this is very needed in our org: 'mitosis-org' Happy to provide feedback.

Thank you

[evi-liu]

Hi @daniel-farina, your org has now been added to the beta!

[daniel-farina]

great thanks, we are currently testing it and will provide feedback back to your team. ❤️

[Aarbel]

@evi-liu can we also be added to it ? We really needed since a while a participated to this feature since 2 years.

Org: 'clovis-app'

Thank you very much !

[seymourisdead]

Hey, we are also rely on tasklists heavily at https://github.com/neondatabase and I believe this will improve Projects experience for us even more! Is there a way to get access to this sooner than later?

[clarkbw]

@azenMatt 👋🏼 we'd be happy to give you a good write up of our feedback after a couple weeks of use

[evi-liu]

The neondatabase org has now been added to the beta! Would love to hear any feedback you have after giving it a try!

[andrasjuhasz]

@azenMatt We're looking at different issue tracking solutions (other than GitHub Projects) due to the exact challenge this and the issue types feature is solving. Please let me know whenever there is a room in the private beta, or this opens up for a broader audience!

[azenMatt]

Will do - we are targeting the end of this month so not too much longer

[evi-liu]

@andrasjuhasz We now have room in our private beta. Which organization(s) would you like to be added to the beta?

[CdrMarks]

I'm looking forward to this. Do you have plans to allow a parent/child relationship to include an issue from another repository.

I currently am using a bit of a hack to manage epics in Projects to see the Epics on a Project Board.

• I have two repositories where we're actively developing features.
  • Each of these issues are in a Project named Development.
  • This project has a custom field named Epic.
  • A development issue can be part of at most one epic.
• I am using another repository called Roadmap.
  • Each issue in this repository serves as a parent (epic).
  • Each issue in this repository has a link allowing quick access to the issues within. Ex: Issues in Epic (this link doesn't work).
  • All of the Roadmap issues are visible in a second project.

[evi-liu]

Yes, you are able to add sub-issues/parents from other repositories!

[CdrMarks]

@evi-liu Great feedback!

Can TheRecruitLab have access to the beta?

[azenMatt]

Hi @CdrMarks - added!

[tomasMizera]

Wow, this is great to hear! Could we also have an access please? github.com/MerginMaps

[chriskuech]

I'm not in the beta but this looks promising. I'm a little weary of adding another "parent" concept when--

• Milestones are the only way to add markers to the "timeline" view in GitHub Projects
• Milestones are tedious to maintain and only navigable from outside of GitHub Projects

Its unclear whether this feature will further complicate that

[evi-liu]

@chriskuech Would you like to give sub-issues a try? If so, which organization would you like it enabled on?

I see milestones and parents as distinct between milestones represent a time-bound piece of work, whereas parents are to break down work.

[chriskuech]

Sorry I actually switched over to Linear and pretty happy with it

[bisdevres]

can we have the issue ID (e.g. #27) in:

1. the sub-issue list, like this:
   
2. and in the group by parent-issue, like this:
   

[evi-liu]

Issue ID in sub-issues has now been added! Thank you for your feedback on this.

[lizlozin]

This is amazing 💞

Wanted to note 2 small things so far:

1. I have lots of "epic" issues with just a list (not tasklist, didn't have that in the org) and wondering if there's an easy way to convert that list into the sub issues (going 1 by 1 adding them as existing sub issues atm)

2. When I'm adding in the existing sub issue list, I can't search for closed issues and need to paste in the full url

[lizlozin]

I tried dragging the issues from the list in the issue description to the subissues and the UI makes it feel like it should work but it doesn't

[evi-liu]

1. This is great feedback, thank you.
2. This should be fixed now. Are you still not able to search for closed issues?

[nicksloan]

We’re heavy task list users over at matterxyz and would love to give feedback on this feature while it is in progress. Looks very good so far.

[evi-liu]

Hi @nicksloan, the matterxyz org has now been flagged in to the beta! Give it a try and please let us know if you have any feedback.

[nicksloan]

Thank you so much. At first glance, I'm really excited about this feature. I was a bit confused to not see it in the main issue view, but once I found it, it works great.

Any chance sloatescoan could be invited as well?

[PPT-DGREEN-GH]

We're interested in this beta/GA as we're looking to transition away from ADO. Any word on GA availability or expansion of the beta group?

[evi-liu]

It does take a big for the flag to take effect. Is it working for you now?

[PPT-DGREEN-GH]

Still nothing yet, unfortunately

[PPT-DGREEN-GH]

@evi-liu just noting that I still don't see the feature in the listed org.

[azenMatt]

Could you try again? I just re-added all those orgs

[PPT-DGREEN-GH]

That did it! I look forward to trying this! Thank you!

[simensol]

@eisi-no would like to apply for the beta @evi-liu

[sunnyi101]

@simensol Added

[PythBuster]

@azenMatt Requesting beta access for https://github.com/pythbuster. Thanks in advance! :)
I currently use the descripitons of issues to create relation, would like to use and test it, how good it works with the new approach.

[sunnyi101]

@PythBuster Added1

[mtb-xt]

Hi, requesting beta access for github.com/9spokes

[sunnyi101]

@mtb-xt Added!

[binzcodes]

Hi I see the beta is adding some trial orgs - I'd love to test this, can I get access for https://github.com/binzcodes

[sunnyi101]

@binzcodes we can only add orgs. Please use this link to sign up

[paujorbavivara]

Hello team! I'd love to add my organization to the beta 😄. https://github.com/gcov-newco2

Thank you!!!

[sunnyi101]

@paujorbavivara Added!

[paujorbavivara]

Hello @sunnyi101 I don't see the option to create sub-issues.

[GunnarMorrigan]

We would also love to join this beta:

https://github.com/NewRiseIO

[sunnyi101]

@GunnarMorrigan Added!

[Haigos]

@evi-liu could our org "https://github.com/zebbra" be added to this beta? This is exactly what we were waiting for and would help us to move our project management to github, without having write some hacky scripts :)!

[sunnyi101]

@Haigos Added!

[Haigos]

@sunnyi101 Thanks :)!

[sandros666]

https://github.com/kraftanmelding would love to be in this beta @evi-liu @azenMatt ? Considering a move and without it, I know it is a no-go

[sunnyi101]

@sandros666 Added

[sandros666]

Thank you, first feedback: sub-issues should inherit projects and milestones per default (with possibility to change defult), no?

[evi-liu]

Hi @sandros666, thanks for the feedback! We are indeed looking to bring this inherit projects and milestone functionality to the sub-issue creation flow.

[davidham]

What is the plan for handling issues that were created from task list items?

• Child issues created from task lists are linked to their parent with the tracked-by field
• Child issues created from "sub-issue" are linked to their parent with the parent field

If this is a replacement for task lists, will tracked-by issues be updated to use parent instead? We have a Project board that groups issues by tracked-by and I'd rather not update all those issues by hand if I can avoid it.

[evi-liu]

Hi @davidham, we would encourage you to only use sub-issues moving forward as that is the official replacement for tasklists. Unfortunately, we don't have any migration tooling for tasklists so our recommendation is to migrate over all of the tasklist items into sub-issues. Apologies for the inconvenience!

[davidham]

np, thanks for getting back to me!

[JorisOrangeStudio]

[sunnyi101]

You can now use this link to sign up!

[treeder]

@sunnyi101 will this be available for personal accounts or only orgs ? Don't see my username on the list to choose from.

[sunnyi101]

@treeder this is org based. So all users of the org will have access

[treeder]

Will it make to personal pro accounts at some point? Most of my repositories are in my personal account.

[barryShevlin]

Would it be possible to get access for my org, https://github.com/Toro-Translate? I signed up a few weeks ago and I've been eagerly hoping for my team to get access so we can better organize our issues and projects.

[evi-liu]

We are now using this waitlist to handle sign-ups! Please sign up your org there, and we'll get it flagged in as soon as possible.

[evi-liu]

Sub-issues is now in public preview 🎉! Moving forward, we will handle all opt-in requests via our waitlist, so make sure to add your orgs there if you haven't already!

As we are moving out of private beta, we will also be closing this discussion in favor of our public preview feedback thread. Please direct all feedback there moving forward. Thanks all for all of the sub-issues love and feedback ❤️

[Aarbel]

Question: will it be possible to convert a checkbox as a sub-issue ?

[Aarbel]

Question: would it be possible to assign people on sub-issues, directly for issue ? (when clicking on avatar)

[EMPACTS]

Hi @evi-liu @sunnyi101

Thank you so much for your dedicated work on Isssue Types Project. As a project manager, I see a huge future of building project management on Github and synchronize our works here.
We have a startup project called @empacts and have already signed up your waitlist. Could you please have a check please? We would love to initialize our project planning with Github Project

Thank you so much!