Add gh issue support for parent issues / sub-tasks

Describe the feature or problem you’d like to solve

It is currently not possible to set a parent issue/sub-task when creating/editing issues:
https://docs.github.com/en/issues/planning-and-tracking-with-projects/understanding-fields/about-parent-issue-and-sub-issue-progress-fields

Proposed solution

I think it would be enough to add these options: --set-parent [ID] and --unset-parent [ID].

Additional context

@premun

Hey @premun, thanks for the request! We are currently chatting internally about how we want to approach this. We'll try to provide an update when we have one 🙂

Has there been any movement on this? I would love to be able to start leveraging this for my projects.

@aRustyDev

@aRustyDev Not yet because we've had some competing priorities. I also think there might be more to fully supporting sub-issues than this - like issue view probably needs to be updated as well.

However, if you are comfortable sharing more information about your CLI specific use cases, we can make sure that feedback is heard in our prioritization discussions and taken into account when we start working on this from a design standpoint.

Hi, tools like the just released OpenAI Codex (the cloud product) are very good at tackling small tasks autonomously. It would be a huge productivity boost to be able to use Codex to break down high-effort issues into smaller sub-issues and conveniently track progress.

You can configure the Codex environment and AGENTS.md to use gh CLI...

@DhruvDh

@aRustyDev Not yet because we've had some competing priorities. I also think there might be more to fully supporting sub-issues than this - like issue view probably needs to be updated as well.

However, if you are comfortable sharing more information about your CLI specific use cases, we can make sure that feedback is heard in our prioritization discussions and taken into account when we start working on this from a design standpoint.

My use case is similar to @DhruvDh

I'm trying to be able to automate breaking up bigger issues, as well as trying to make some repos declarative in nature. I have some template repositories that I want to be able to quickly deploy a set of simple issues on creation (manually via the CLI if need be). Think like having a template for a rust repo, but needing to change out a few things depending if the repo is intended for a desktop app vs a web app vs a cli executable etc. So I might need to add configuration for homebrew cask or remove a dockerfile or something simple, but these would all roll up under one parent issue ("cleanup repo" or something).

This would help alot with documenting what I'm doing, quickly building out a list of small changes that need to be verified and helping to keep my issues cleaner.

Add gh issue add-sub command for sub-issue management

Hi! I've implemented a working gh issue add-sub command for my personal use since the GraphQL addSubIssue mutation is now available.

Implementation details:

Command: gh issue add-sub <parent-issue> <sub-issue>
Supports issue numbers and URLs
Works with --repo flag
Includes proper error handling and tests
Follows existing gh CLI patterns and conventions

Example usage:

# Basic usage
gh issue add-sub 123 456

# With URLs
gh issue add-sub https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123 456

# Cross-repository
gh issue add-sub 123 456 --repo owner/repo

Live demo:

I've successfully tested it on my fork repository:

Repository: https://github.com/yahsan2/gh-cli
Created parent issue "Test Parent Issue" (#1)
Created sub-issue "Test Sub Issue" (#2)
Linked them with: gh issue add-sub 1 2 --repo yahsan2/gh-cli
Result: ✓ Added issue #2 as a sub-issue of #1

Source code:

The implementation is available in my fork: yahsan2@05f9f44ab

Files added:

pkg/cmd/issue/addsub/addsub.go - Main command implementation
pkg/cmd/issue/addsub/addsub_test.go - Unit tests
pkg/cmd/issue/issue.go - Integration with existing issue commands

The implementation is fully functional and ready to use. If there's interest from the maintainers and community, I'd be happy to create a PR for review and discussion.

it would be very cool to see the subissues in gh issue view.:)

Is A PR gonna get opened to have this added?

@yahsan2

Hi folks 👋

Apologies for the silence on this one. This #10298 (comment) is still the current state of things.

Huge thank you to @yahsan2 for the implementation reference. We haven't had the time to dig into it fully, but I know that'll be valuable in the future 🙏

Like @stanoddly mentioned, porting your code to an extension could be a worthwhile endeavor, if you're interested. Extensions can help bridge the gap in these situations where we haven't been able to prioritize getting it into the core gh yet, while demonstrating the real world value and use of the feature 💡

For everyone that is waiting for this, please:

React (👍 ) to the original issue post.
Describe your use cases and the value of this feature. Seeing the value and use-cases are incredibly important to our prioritization process.

@stanoddly

Thanks for the replies, you guys. @stanoddly @BagToad
I didn't know gh extensions. I'll try to make an extension like gh-sub-issues. I’ll let you know if I can get it done.

Describe your use cases and the value of this feature. Seeing the value and use-cases are incredibly important to our prioritization process.

And in my case, I manage my tasks using GitHub Issues. I often start by breaking down tasks using Claude Code and documenting them. Based on that document, I frequently want to add sub-issues.

If a sub-issues command existed, I could create structured issues directly from Claude Code outputs. Without parent-child issue relationships, the issue list becomes cluttered with many small tasks. By registering these as sub-issues under a single parent, I can keep the implementation units small while maintaining visibility and better progress tracking.

In addition, some tasks can be completed via GitHub Actions. After breaking down the tasks, I want to clearly separate which ones I will implement manually and which can be completed automatically by GitHub Actions.

I’ve already started implementing this :). For example, I would like to register the sections “Setup Tasks,” “Implementation Tasks,” and “Completion Checklist” from this issue comment as sub-issues:

yahsan2/gh-sub-issues#4 (comment)

I’m trying to use GraphQL with LLM prompts to register sub-tasks automatically, but I often encounter errors like “command not found” and the process is unstable.

I believe using a proper CLI extension would make the instructions more reliable. However, it would be even better if sub-issue support were built into the official GitHub CLI.

I’ve created a gh-sub-issue extension — feel free to try it out and let me know your feedback! and please star ⭐
https://github.com/yahsan2/gh-sub-issue

gh extension install yahsan2/gh-sub-issue

For my use case, I am using the GitHub CLI along with sub-issues to break down complex issues, ensuring that sub-agents remain focused and on task. However, I encountered a failure point when I asked an agent to create a new sub-issue using the CLI, and it became completely confused. In my search for documentation to assist with this, I found the resources to be limited, which is how I ended up here.

@BagToad

My primary use case is workflows with agents that breaking down PRD's into sub-issues for features/tasks.

@aRustyDev Not yet because we've had some competing priorities. I also think there might be more to fully supporting sub-issues than this - like issue view probably needs to be updated as well.

@BagToad - Even if adding/removing sub issues was to be added a ahead of solving future the issue view enhancements it would be a big win.

In the mean time I'm using @yahsan2's extension https://github.com/yahsan2/gh-sub-issue

@aRustyDev Not yet because we've had some competing priorities. I also think there might be more to fully supporting sub-issues than this - like issue view probably needs to be updated as well.

However, if you are comfortable sharing more information about your CLI specific use cases, we can make sure that feedback is heard in our prioritization discussions and taken into account when we start working on this from a design standpoint.

I'd like to be able to query an issue ID and in its response have its Relationships data - highest priority being parent issue

Sub-issue support is in progress, covering --parent on create, --set-parent/--remove-parent on edit, and parent/subIssues/subIssuesSummary in --json output. The full design is up for review at #13120. If you have feedback on the proposed flags or behavior, please comment there!

docs(goal): resolve slice-2 shapes (guided form + native sub-issues)

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Add `gh issue` support for parent issues / sub-tasks #10298

Describe the feature or problem you’d like to solve

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Example usage:

Live demo:

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Add gh issue support for parent issues / sub-tasks #10298

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Describe the feature or problem you’d like to solve

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jtmcg commented on Jan 27, 2025

aRustyDev commented on May 10, 2025

BagToad commented on May 10, 2025

DhruvDh commented on May 17, 2025

aRustyDev commented on May 29, 2025

yahsan2 commented on Jun 30, 2025

Implementation details:

Example usage:

Live demo:

Source code:

AzulGarza commented on Jul 4, 2025

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Riprock commented on Aug 1, 2025

BagToad commented on Aug 1, 2025

yahsan2 commented on Aug 7, 2025

yahsan2 commented on Aug 7, 2025

yahsan2 commented on Aug 7, 2025

yahsan2 commented on Aug 7, 2025

adamrefactored commented on Aug 26, 2025

sandcastle commented on Aug 27, 2025

dfaivre-pcs commented on Sep 5, 2025

BagToad commented on Apr 8, 2026

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Add `gh issue` support for parent issues / sub-tasks #10298