The fields "Epic Link" and "Parent Link" will be removed from the Jira REST API

[#1]

This announcement is relevant to you if you're using the fields "Epic Link" and "Parent Link" in:

• Custom scripts that use Jira REST API
• The Marketplace apps installed in your Jira

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The deprecation of Epic link, parent link, and other related fields in REST APIs is now extended:

• Parent Link will be removed on 13 June 2025
• Epic Link will be removed on 13 September 2025

These fields have already been removed from webhooks and change history.

Please ensure your custom scripts or Marketplace apps no longer reference these fields. Use the field "Parent" instead.

[Alan Fabiano]

Why?

[Jeramy]

I agree, why?

[Kim-Stacey Kidder]

Any recommendations re. tools/strategies to best audit and identify scripts and apps within our instance that are using these fields? 

[Ethan_Heimstead]

Just for further information, If we are using the above in our JIRA automations within JIRA, would this cause those to break? I am assuming the automations in JIRA are just a UI for API calls and this could result in breaks if not addressed by admins.

[Drew Zhu]

For anyone needs more context on this change https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-articles/Beyond-epics-Flexible-naming-has-landed/ba-p/2609733

[Konstantin Kulishenkov]

Hi @Kim-Stacey Kidder and @Ethan_Heimstead - Jira Automation was updated to work with the "Parent" field back in 2023, so it won't be affected, however we ask all admins to ensure that none of their Automation rules directly reference the deprecated fields as smart values.

We have communicated this deprecation to the app developers as well. Still, we recommend checking your apps' configuration to make sure these fields are not directly referenced to.

There is no automated solution to identify the use of these fields due to the differences in the implementation of various Marketplace apps.

If your Jira uses custom scripts, we ask you also inspect these to ensure the deprecated fields are not used there.

Thanks,

Konstantin

[Genevieve]

@Konstantin Kulishenkov For some reason my audit log is showing that the rule using Parent is failing "(Could not find issue by id or key. (parent))" but when I switch it to Epic Link it runs well. This is for automations regarding Story subtask work items only (the other work items that are not -1 work with parent). Is there something I should do differently for Stories and Subtasks? For now, I'm using Epic Link as it's working and will monitor if it stops nesting and see if Parent will work instead.