Linked Issues Condition & Validator

Enforce dependencies, block progress when related work isn’t ready, and keep issue hierarchies aligned with real project progress.

Both Linked Issues Condition and Linked Issues Validator help ensure that related issues (linked issues, sub-tasks, stories, children or parent) are in the right state before allowing a transition to proceed. If they’re not, the transition is blocked. Simple as that!

Reminder: A Condition hides the transition if criteria aren’t met, while a Validator allows the transition button to be clicked but blocks it after submission if requirements fail.

Example: Ensure that child issues - Stories and Tasks are completed and at least one of them is attached to the parent issue.

⚙️ Configuration Options

If you're looking for how to add a condition or validator to a workflow transition, check out our Setup Conditions and Validators.

Relation

Pick what kind of issue relationship you want to check:

• Linked Issues – Regular issue links like "blocks" or "relates to."

• Sub-Tasks – Checks the issue’s sub-tasks.

• Stories – Validates an Epic’s child issues (excluding sub-tasks).

• Children – Checks both child issues and sub-tasks. Works when you’ve set up multiple hierarchy levels.

• Parent – Validates the parent issue.

Remote Links and Web Links cannot be validated. Read more in Limitations.

Link Types (optional)

If using Linked Issues, you can filter by specific link types. Links have a name and direction (e.g., "relates to" might have incoming and outgoing links).

If left empty, all linked issues will be validated.

Issue Types (optional)

Only need to check specific issue types? No problem—just set a filter! Great for:

• Only certain issue types need to be completed before transitioning.

• You want to enforce having a child of a specific issue type.

Leave empty to validate all related issues

Require At Least One Issue

Checks if at least one issue exists that matches the selected relation (and previous filters). If not, the validator fails.

Status Category and Statuses

Best Practice: Use Status Categories instead of specific statuses to check if related issues are completed.

• Why? Status names can change over time, but categories (To Do, In Progress, Done) stay consistent.

• Example: Instead of checking for "Resolved," check if the issue is in the "Done" category.

Override Validation Message (Validators Only)

This setting allows you to customize the validation message instead of using the default one generated based on your selected settings. You can also use Jira expression syntax to make it more dynamic.

Learn more about writing validation messages

How to block a Jira issue transition when blocking linked issues are not completed

Use cases

Prevent closing an issue if all linked "is blocked by" issues are not closed

1. Set Relation to Linked issues

2. In Link types: select is blocked by

3. In Status category: select Done

4. (Optional) In Status: select explicitly which statuses are allowed, e.g. Closed

5. (Optional) Check: At least one linked issue, as defined above, must exist if specified links are required.

Allow transition only if at least one sub-task is defined and all the sub-tasks are done

1. Set Relation to Sub-tasks

2. In Status category: select Done

3. Check: At least one sub-task, as defined above, must exist

Prevent transition of an epic if there are open issues underneath it

1. Set Relation to Children

2. In Status category: select Done

Allow transition of an epic only if all children of type Bug are in the Investigated status

1. Set Relation to Children

2. In Issue types: select Bug

3. In Statuses: select Investigated

Allow transition only if an epic has at least one child

1. Set Relation to Children

2. Check: At least one child issue, as defined above, must exist

Allow story in an epic transition only if the epic is in progress

1. Set Relation to Parent

2. In Status category: select In progress