Sub-issues and Relations
Break large issues into sub-issues and link related work with issue relations.
Complex issues often need to be broken down or connected to other pieces of work. Clave provides two tools for this: sub-issues for hierarchical decomposition, and relations for expressing dependencies and connections.
Sub-issues
What are sub-issues?
A sub-issue is a child issue nested under a parent. This lets you break a large feature or task into smaller, trackable pieces. The parent and children are independent issues — each has its own status, assignee, priority, and identifier.
For example, a parent issue "Set up authentication" might have sub-issues "Design sign-in page", "Implement OAuth flow", and "Write auth unit tests".
Creating a sub-issue
From the parent issue's detail page:
- Open the parent issue.
- Find the Sub-issues section below the description.
- Click Add sub-issue.
- A quick-create form appears. Type the title of the child issue and press Enter or click Create.
The new sub-issue is automatically linked to the parent and inherits the parent's project.
Adding an existing issue as a sub-issue:
In the sub-issues section, you can search for an existing issue by title or identifier and link it as a child.
Viewing the hierarchy
In the list view, enable Show sub-issues in the Display panel to see child issues indented under their parent in the list.
In the board view, sub-issues appear as regular cards — their relationship to the parent is visible from the sub-issue indicator badge.
Opening a sub-issue shows the parent's identifier in the breadcrumb at the top of the detail page. Clicking the parent identifier navigates back up to the parent issue.
Sub-issue progress
The parent issue's detail page shows a count of how many sub-issues exist and how many are complete, giving you a quick read on progress without opening each one.
Relations
Relations link two separate issues that have a meaningful connection but are not in a parent-child relationship.
Relation types
| Type | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Blocks | This issue must be resolved before the related issue can proceed. |
| Blocked by | This issue cannot proceed until the related issue is resolved. |
| Related to | A general association — useful for cross-referencing without implying a dependency. |
| Duplicate of | This issue is a duplicate of another. |
Adding a relation
- Open an issue's detail page.
- Find the Relations section below the sub-issues section.
- Click Add relation.
- In the dialog, choose a relation type from the dropdown.
- Search for the target issue by title or identifier.
- Select the target issue and click Add.
The relation appears in the Relations section, grouped by type.
How relations affect workflows
Blocking relations are surfaced in the project dashboard as "Blocked open" issues. When an issue is marked as blocked, it's excluded from assignment during sprint planning until the blocker is resolved.
Duplicate relations help you identify and consolidate duplicate reports. When you mark an issue as a duplicate, both issues remain open — you decide which one to resolve and close.
Removing a relation
In the Relations section, hover over any relation entry to reveal the X button. Click it to remove the relation. Removing a relation doesn't affect either issue's status or data.
