Parent and sub-issues

Sub-issues break down tasks that fall under a larger parent issue.

What are sub-issues?

They're ideal to use for these use cases:

When a set of work is too large to be its own issue but too small to be a project.

When you have multiple assignees (we support one assignee per issue).

When you want to associate multiple PRs. You can link multiple PRs to a single Linear issue with magic words.

👩‍💻

How we work at Linear We limit PRs to one per issue and sometimes use sub-issues to help us do that. When we start working on something, the GitHub automation moves the issue to "In Progress" status and then "In Review" status once a review is requested. When the PR is closed, the issue is closed. It keeps things simple.

Our concept of sub-issues

We treat sub-issues and their parent issues as as separate entities. They are related to each other but each have their own estimate count, assignees, labels, teams, etc. You can configure estimates in team settings to allow for zero estimates if you don't want the parent issue to count toward the total estimate value.

Create sub-issues

Create sub-issues directly by opening the parent issue and then clicking the + Add sub-issues button below the issue description to launch the sub-issue editor. You can also use the shortcut Command Shift O to open the editor. When composing a sub-issue, save it with to immediately add another one.

Sub-issues created in the editor automatically copy issue properties from the parent issue such as the project and cycle as long as those are set before you create the sub-issue. Team, labels and assignees are not copied over. You can't create sub-issues while editing the parent issue but the option will come up once you press save.

Turn existing issues into parent or sub-issues

While viewing an existing issue or after selecting an issue, use the keyboard shortcut Command Shift O or type Add sub-issue into the command menu while in the issue view or when selecting an issue. Turn an existing issue(s) into sub-issues of another issue by selecting it and then setting the parent issue. Find this command in the contextual menu or ∙∙∙ menu from the issue view.

To make an existing issue a parent issue of another issue, hover over a sub-issue and take the action Set Parent in the contextual menu, command menu or ∙∙∙ menu.

Update sub-issues

Update a sub-issue to edit it just like you would any other issue. You can make changes to the sub-issue from a list or board view or open it to edit.

To make changes to a sub-issue while viewing the parent issue, hover over the issue in the sub-issue list and then use a keyboard shortcut or right-click to open a contextual menu to update any issue field. Some issue fields will show up by default on the issue, such as assignee and team, and you can click to update those.

We do not yet support multi-selecting sub-issues to update them from the parent issue so you'll have to make changes individually or multi-select manually from a board or list view.

Filter sub-issues in views

You can usually set the view to show or hide sub-issues in View Options. You can also use

Filters to show only top-level (parent) issues, issues with sub-issues, or only sub-issues. If you use these filters frequently, consider creating a custom view.

Navigating between parent and sub-issues

When you view a sub-issue, we'll show a header at the top that lets you click to navigate to the parent issue or any of the other sub-issues.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Cmd/Ctrl Shift O Create a new sub-issue

Cmd Enter to save and add another sub-issue

Did we miss something? Still have a question? Email us at hello@linear.app to let us know.

Sub-issues break down tasks are issues that fall under a larger parent issue.