Why can't my automations allow for an agent to work against a child of an epic?

Question

has anyone been able to execute agents in an automation workflow that allows the agent to comment on a child story?

I am wanting an automation to evaluate the description and A/C for each child story and supply feedback on the story in the comments of the story.

The agent's response even though it's operating from overall access still responds back with

I couldn't retrieve the details for the user story with the issue key XXX-YYYY. It seems there might be an issue with accessing the specific Jira issue or it may not exist. Please verify the issue key or check the permissions to access the Jira project. If you have any other details or need further assistance, feel free to let me know.

Dr Valeri Colon (Connect Centric) · Answer

@Colton_Kosicek Rovo agents can run inside automations, but they don’t inherit full issue access. Automations pass only the fields in the payload, and child issues often aren’t included. If the agent tries to re-fetch the story, it fails unless the automation user has browse + view permissions for that project. Add those permissions to the automation actor or switch the rule to “run as project admin” to fix it.

Vitalii Rybka · Answer

Hi @Colton_Kosicek,

This sounds like a Rovo agent permission issue when trying to access child issues. Here are some troubleshooting steps:

Check These First:

* Agent Permissions: Ensure the agent has access to the project containing the child stories
* Issue Type Permissions: Verify the agent can access Story issue types, not just Epics
* Project Role: The agent might need explicit permissions to the child story's project if it's different from the Epic's project

Common Issues:

* Cross-Project Access: If Epic and Stories are in different projects, the agent needs permissions to both
* Issue Security Schemes: Child stories might have different security levels than the parent Epic
* Field-Level Security: Some fields might be restricted even if the agent can see the issue

Debugging Steps:

* Test the agent directly on a child story (not through automation) to isolate the permission issue
* Check if the agent can access other issues in the same project as the child stories
* Verify the exact issue key format being passed to the agent

Workaround: Try having the automation pass additional context like project key and issue type to help the agent locate the issue.

Are you using Rovo agents or a different AI agent platform? The specific setup would help narrow down the permission model.

Feel free to DM me if you want to troubleshoot the specific agent configuration!