JIRA project List Tab: Unable to see ONLY epics with option to expand them (XRay entities don't hide

[Lena Wong]

Hi everypne,

I am facing a severe limitation with the List View in JIRA Cloud. I am trying to configure a clean view for ONLY Epics at the root level, with the native arrow to expand and see their child issues on demand. Additionally, we need to completely hide Xray test entities (Test, Test Set, Test Execution, Test Plan, Precondition) from the view.

We have tried multiple approaches, and all of them fail due to native List View constraints:

1. Filtering by issuetype = Epic:
   • Result: It shows only the Epics, but Jira completely removes the expand/collapse arrow because child issues are excluded from the JQL scope.
2. Including children in JQL (issuetype = Epic OR parent is not EMPTY) and ordering by Hierarchy (ORDER BY cf[number] ASC): --> I replaced the real number by "number" only for this thread
   • Result: Jira successfully brings the arrows, but it lists all children flat on the screen. It also lists orphan Xray test cases at the bottom of the page, cluttering the view.
3. Using UI Collapse/Expand Buttons:
   • Result: "Collapse all" does not prevent orphan issues or flat-listed children from populating the root rows incorrectly in this specific List.
4. Using Grouping options:
   • Result: Grouping by "Epic" is missing/not supported in this view's dropdown. Grouping by "Issue Type" breaks the parent-child hierarchy completely.

What we need:
A way (via JQL or native view settings) to achieve a clean tree hierarchy in List View where only Epics are listed initially, their dropdown arrows are functional, and Xray test entities do not clutter the root level or appear as individual flat rows.

Is this a known limitation of the new List View components (List tab when you see a project), or is there a specific workaround/custom field ordering we are missing to force a strict Epic-root hierarchy?

Thanks in advance!