Unable to get parent field of an issue

Question

I am using Jira API with Python to loop through issues (which are all tasks) and have been referencing their fields (like singleIssue.fields.summary, singleIssue.fields.created, etc). I can't however figure out how to get the parent/epic of the task. It seems like parent should be a field of each issue, but when I display the fields (singleIssue.raw['fields']), parent or epic isn't one of them. Is there anything I am missing here or another way to find the parent of an issue with Python?

mitra_ewi4uq · Answer

Got it - thanks for your answer that makes sense! How would I know which one my project is?

mitra_ewi4uq · Answer

Thanks so much for your response! When I look at https://{instancename}.atlassian.net/rest/api/latest/issue/{issuekey}, I don't see any fields related to "parent" or "epic", but when I look at https://{instancename}.atlassian.net/rest/api/latest/issue/{issuekey}?expand=names I see a parent field with id, key, summary, and more. I'm new to this so this may be an obvious question, but what does the ?expand=names in the URL do and how would I access those fields in my loop?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

The hierarchy is a bit of a mess in Jira, for historical reasons I won't bore you with.  Atlassian are currently trying to improve it, but it's not quite there yet.

Part of it is because of the two styles of project there are.  Both see "Epic -> Issue -> Sub-task" as the core hierarchy, but:

* Team Managed Projects have a relatively simple "parent / child" structure.
* Company Managed Projects use "sub task links" to connect issues to sub-tasks and Epic Link to link issues to Epics.

Atlassian are moving the REST APIs to hide the complexities of CMPs here, and you will soon be able to just say "parent/child" and not have to worry, but for now, you do need to look at the project type to work out what you should be asking for!