Unable to Fetch Child Issues in JQL – Only Linked Issues Appearing

Question

Hello Atlassian Support,

I am facing an issue where I am unable to fetch child issues (stories) through JQL. The query only returns linked issues, but not the child stories associated with an Epic/Parent.

* For Example Epic Issue : NS30319-17425
* Current Behavior: In the linked issues section, child stories are not being displayed. We are able to see the linked issues but not the child stories related to the Epic/Parent issue in the JQL query.
* Expectation: We need the ability to fetch the child stories along with the Epic/Parent issue in the JQL query, but as of now, there seems to be no way to achieve this.

Additional Information:
We do not have the ScriptRunner add-on. I am aware that through ScriptRunner’s enhanced JQL, this is possible. However, I would like to know if there are any other ways or native Jira features within the built-in JQL to achieve this result.

Please let us know how we can resolve this or if there are any workarounds available.

Thank you for your assistance.

Best regards,
Prasanna Kumar kola

Kristian Walker _Adaptavist_ · Answer

Hi Prassana,

The Enhanced Search feature of ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud or the standalone Enhanced Search app can help solve this using the ChildrenOf() JQL function.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Kristian

Walter Buggenhout · Answer

Hi @Prasanna Kumar Kola and welcome to the Community!

If you are trying to retrieve the child issues of a specific Epic (and you know its key, like you describe), you can query for them natively like this:

parent = NS30319-17425

It is worth noting that this type of native filtering is not dynamic, i.e. you need to explicitly mention the issue key of the parent issue. For more dynamic use cases (e.g. to retrieve all child issues of a set of epics you retrieve through another filter) you would need a marketplace extension like Scriptrunner's enhanced search.

Hope this helps!