How to assign an issue as a child of another issue

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1

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Problem to solve

I have a relatively simple project (I am up to issue 333) but the some of the issues I have created are subtasks of an overall function.

I tried adding these issues, but I get an error message
“#329 cannot be added: is not allowed to add this type of parent and cannot assign a linked work item as a parent”

I tried creating a child issue and it came out as a task. There doesn’t seem to be a way to demote my existing issue to child or task.

Is the only way round this to delete the issue I can’t add and create a child within the issue I want to be a parent.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create issue
  2. Create second issue
  3. Try and add issue 2 as a child of issue 1.

Configuration

Unsure what to do here

Versions

Please select whether options apply, and add the version information.

  • [16.11 EE ] Self-managed
3 Likes
2

Interesting question. I also assumed this would be possible.

But trying to add an existing issue as a “Child Item” to an issue results in the error:

# cannot be added: is not allowed to add this type of parent

Would be great if this was possible, but also happy to hear about workarounds.

I am on 16.11.06 EE

3

Same problem here. Add existing issue via “Add existing task fails” with the error message “#1 cannot be added: is not allowed to add this type of parent”

4

Hei, same here. Any update on how to solve add an issue as a child to another issue?

5

Same issue here in 2025!? Hello?

Please please, make Epics just a “free” tier.

6

Or maybe just buy a subscription if you need it? :wink:

It’s a paid feature, it won’t be put in free tier. Get yourself a subscription.

7

It seems that this works:
first create a ticket (epic)
second add a child with type “new task” and fill out the new one
adding new tasks seems to allow to build up a hierarchy in a free version of gitlab

1 Like
8

Or maybe just buy a subscription if you need it? :wink:

I agree, but I’m just a small solo open-source developer that creates free & open-source software.. And I want to avoid GitHub. Too bad, these subscriptions are just too expensive for open source devs.

I actually hope that (small)/medium/big corps should pay the money for support, etc. I also guess that is already the main GitLab revenue stream. Not the small solo devs like me.

@ReBu yea indeed it seems that the free tier does allow maybe not epics. So you can only create an “Issue” and create “Sub-tasks” below that issue. That is the only thing that is available.

The main take away is: The “Parent” option under issue is very confusing in GitLab Free, since that will never work (until further notice, I guess).

1 Like
9

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