issue-management

name	issue-management
description	Manage GitHub Issues 2.0 relationships with gh CLI: parent issues, sub-issues, blocked-by, and blocking links.

Use this skill when creating, editing, inspecting, or removing relationships between GitHub issues.

These commands use the Issues 2.0 gh issue support added in GitHub CLI PR cli/cli#13057. Because this feature is new, first confirm the installed gh supports it:

gh issue create --help | grep -E -- '--parent|--blocked-by|--blocking'
gh issue edit --help | grep -E -- '--parent|--add-sub-issue|--add-blocked-by|--add-blocking'

If those flags are missing, update gh before trying to manage issue relationships. Do not invent older commands.

Issue reference format

Relationship flags accept issue numbers or issue URLs.

Use a number for an issue in the current repository:

gh issue edit 123 --parent 100

Use a full issue URL for a cross-repository relationship:

gh issue edit 123 --blocked-by https://github.com/remotion-dev/remotion/issues/456

Multiple related issues can be passed as a comma-separated list:

gh issue edit 123 --add-blocked-by 200,201

Parent and sub-issue relationships

A sub-issue has exactly one parent issue.

To create a new issue directly under a parent:

gh issue create \
  --title 'Docs: Add issue management skill' \
  --body-file /tmp/remotion-issue-body.md \
  --parent 100

To set or change the parent of an existing child issue:

gh issue edit <child-number> --parent <parent-number-or-url>

To remove the parent from a child issue:

gh issue edit <child-number> --remove-parent

To manage children from the parent issue:

gh issue edit <parent-number> --add-sub-issue <child-number-or-url>
gh issue edit <parent-number> --remove-sub-issue <child-number-or-url>

--add-sub-issue moves the child to the new parent if it already has another parent. Do not use --add-sub-issue while editing multiple parent issues in one command; one child cannot be added ambiguously to several parents.

Blocked-by and blocking relationships

Use blocked-by when the issue being edited is waiting on another issue.

# Issue 123 is blocked by issue 200.
gh issue edit 123 --add-blocked-by 200

# Remove that relationship.
gh issue edit 123 --remove-blocked-by 200

Use blocking when the issue being edited blocks another issue.

# Issue 123 is blocking issues 300 and 301.
gh issue edit 123 --add-blocking 300,301

# Remove one blocking relationship.
gh issue edit 123 --remove-blocking 300

Equivalent mental model:

gh issue edit A --add-blocking B

means the same relationship as:

gh issue edit B --add-blocked-by A

Choose the command based on which issue you are already editing.

When creating an issue, set relationships immediately:

gh issue create \
  --title 'Studio: Add timeline validation' \
  --body-file /tmp/remotion-issue-body.md \
  --blocked-by 200,201 \
  --blocking 300

Inspecting relationships

Human-readable view shows parent, sub-issues, blocked-by, and blocking metadata when present:

gh issue view <number>

Raw non-TTY output includes stable relationship lines:

gh issue view <number> | grep -E '^(parent|sub-issues|sub-issues-completed|blocked-by|blocking):'

For scripts, request the JSON fields explicitly:

gh issue view <number> \
  --json parent,subIssues,subIssuesSummary,blockedBy,blocking

subIssues, blockedBy, and blocking are connection objects with nodes and totalCount. subIssuesSummary contains completion counts.

Safe workflow

1. Create any new issue bodies with --body-file, not inline multiline shell strings.
2. Link the relationship using the appropriate gh issue create or gh issue edit flag.
3. Verify with gh issue view <number> or gh issue view <number> --json parent,subIssues,subIssuesSummary,blockedBy,blocking.
4. If editing a PR or parent issue body afterward, replace vague checklist text with concrete issue numbers.