In project management, many terms feel intuitive and you can often guess their meaning from context. But in Jira, some features that look simple at first glance actually require thoughtful use if you want to keep projects well organized and easy to manage.
On a Jira board, you can plan work items and track progress, but as projects grow, they often become more complex, spanning multiple parts, priorities, and dependencies. To manage this complexity, Jira provides a hierarchy of issue types: Epics, Stories, Tasks, and Sub-tasks. Epics represent big initiatives, Stories capture user-focused requirements, and Tasks/Sub-tasks handle the technical and operational steps that bring everything to life. Understanding how these pieces fit together is key for effective work tracking.
In this article, I’ll clear up the confusion of what’s best to use for your projects, and show you how to apply Jira’s hierarchy in a way that keeps your work both structured and flexible.
The Basics of Jira Issue Types
Just like there are countless types of projects, teams, and industries, there are also countless ways to organize work. Jira simplifies this with just a few core issue types: Epics, Stories, Tasks, and Sub-tasks. But the lines between them aren’t always obvious.
What Are Issue Types in Jira?
In Jira, everything you track is an issue. Issue types define what kind of work it is — from big initiatives to small action items. They’re the building blocks of Agile project management, helping teams prioritize, track progress, and stay aligned.
The Jira Issue Hierarchy
Think of the hierarchy like nesting dolls:
Epic → Story → Task → Sub-task
Epics contain Stories, Stories can be broken into Tasks, and Tasks into Sub-tasks. Each level helps you zoom in or out on the work.
A Simple Rule of Thumb
Jira is flexible, and teams adapt issue types differently. Still, here’s a practical way to size your work:
- Task → Small, takes minutes.
- Story → Medium, takes hours and delivers user value.
- Epic → Large, takes days/weeks, made of multiple stories and tasks.
What is an Epic?
An Epic in Jira is a large body of work or high-level initiative that is long-term, strategic, and broken down into smaller deliverables like stories and tasks. Use an Epic when you need to group related work under one umbrella, such as implementing a new user onboarding experience.
If you want to connect your Epics seamlessly to SAFe® or scaled Agile planning, check out Agile Hive. It extends Jira’s hierarchy to support true portfolio-level visibility.
What is a Story?
A Story in Jira represents a user-centric requirement that delivers tangible value, usually written in the format “As a user, I want… so that…”. Stories capture specific pieces of functionality that can be completed within a sprint and are small enough to be estimated and tested. They typically roll up into an Epic, ensuring that each user-focused piece of work contributes to a larger initiative.
Well-written stories become even more powerful with visual context. With draw.io, you can embed diagrams directly into Jira or Confluence to make user stories more understandable.
You don’t have to create Jira Stories from scratch. Check out how to create a Jira User Story template with Templating.app here.
What is a Task?
A Task in Jira is a technical or operational piece of work that supports a project but isn’t always directly visible to the user. Tasks are smaller in scope than stories and typically cover behind-the-scenes work, such as “Set up database schema for user onboarding.” Unlike Sub-tasks, which break a task or story into even smaller actionable steps, tasks stand on their own as independent work items.
When breaking down stories into tasks, it’s easy to lose track of small but important steps. With Didit – Checklists for Jira, you can embed checklists directly inside your tasks to capture acceptance criteria, to-dos, or technical steps — ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
Sub-tasks and their role
Sub-tasks in Jira are the smallest unit of work and exist to break down a larger Story or Task into clear, manageable steps. They’re especially useful for distributing responsibility within a team, allowing multiple people to work on different parts of the same issue in parallel. For example, under a task like “Set up database schema,” you might create a sub-task such as “Create table for user preferences,” ensuring progress is tracked at a very granular level.
Is there a typical balance of Jira issue types?
There’s no single “typical balance” of Jira issue types — the right distribution depends on your team’s projects, workflows, and goals. In many cases, a broad Epic (or even a higher-level Initiative) encompasses numerous Stories, Tasks, and Bugs, which can then be broken down into smaller Sub-tasks. Stories usually capture user-centric features, tasks cover general work, bugs address fixes, and epics provide the larger structure that ties everything together.
Best Practices for Using the Hierarchy
The standard Jira hierarchy is Epic → Story → Task → Sub-task, but real-world projects often require more flexibility. Different teams may need additional levels or tools to ensure clarity, consistency, and scalability.
Keep Issue Creation Consistent with Viable Issues
While Jira lets admins define new issue types, teams also need to make sure those types are used consistently. That’s where Viable Issues comes in. Viable Issues allows you to place “Create Issue” buttons directly in Confluence pages with preconfigured fields (such as project, issue type, or labels). This ensures that when teammates create issues, they automatically follow the right structure — reducing errors, maintaining context, and keeping your issue hierarchy clean. Rather than creating new issue types, Viable Issues focuses on enforcing consistency with the ones you already have.
Scaling Agile with Agile Hive
When organizations grow beyond a few teams, maintaining alignment between strategy and execution becomes critical. Agile Hive extends Jira’s hierarchy to support the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®), adding levels like Program Increment (PI) and Portfolio Epic. This ensures traceability from the highest strategic goals down to individual tasks, so teams can plan confidently and leaders can see the big picture.
Create Custom Issue Types
Jira admins can introduce new issue types to reflect higher-level goals or special categories of work. For example, you might add an Initiative issue type to capture large, cross-team goals that span multiple Epics. A company-wide marketing initiative, for instance, could be broken down into Epics for each campaign (digital, content, social media), with Stories and Tasks representing the deliverables like blog posts, landing pages, or ad creatives. This approach helps teams map their work more closely to organizational goals.
Tips for Structuring Work Effectively
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Avoid overlap: Define clearly what belongs at each level (e.g., Epics vs. Stories) to prevent duplication or confusion.
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Break down thoughtfully: Epics should capture outcomes, Stories should deliver user value, Tasks should handle supporting work, and Sub-tasks should split up execution steps.
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Align with Agile ceremonies: Use Epics for long-term planning, Stories for sprint commitments, and Sub-tasks for detailed execution in daily stand-ups.
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Maintain traceability: Always link issues across levels so reporting and dashboards roll up accurately.
Wrapping up
By applying Jira’s issue hierarchy thoughtfully — from Epics to Stories, Tasks, and Sub-tasks — teams can bring clarity and structure to even the most complex projects. Using each level for its intended purpose ensures work stays aligned, traceable, and easy to manage. In the end, a clear hierarchy doesn’t just improve planning and reporting — it strengthens collaboration and helps teams deliver value more predictably.
FAQs
What are some common mistakes to avoid with Jira issue hierarchies?
Teams often struggle by misclassifying work, such as using Stories for technical tasks or overusing Epics for small deliverables. Another pitfall is forgetting to link Stories to Epics, which breaks traceability, and ignoring sub-task granularity, leading to work that’s either too vague or too fragmented. To avoid these issues, define clear guidelines for each issue type, regularly groom your backlog, and keep your hierarchy consistent.
How to change issue type hierarchy in Jira?
In Jira, the hierarchy can be customized by adding or modifying issue types and arranging them in Issue Type Schemes. Admins can create new types like Initiatives, assign them to projects, and define how they fit into the hierarchy. In Advanced Roadmaps (Premium/Enterprise), admins can also configure custom hierarchy levels above Epics. These changes require Jira administrator permissions and should be planned carefully to avoid disrupting existing workflows.
What is an Epic in Jira?
An Epic is a large body of work or high-level initiative in Jira that spans multiple sprints and teams. It acts as a container for Stories, Tasks, and Sub-tasks, ensuring related work stays grouped. Epics are typically long-term and strategic, such as “Implement new onboarding flow,” and help teams track progress on big-picture goals. By linking work to Epics, teams can visualize how daily tasks contribute to larger outcomes.
How to delete an Epic in Jira?
If you are an admin, to delete an Epic in Jira, open the Epic issue and select the “More” (⋯) menu → Delete option. Keep in mind that deleting an Epic does not delete the linked Stories or Tasks; they remain in the project but lose their Epic link. Since deletion is permanent, it’s usually better to close or archive an Epic to preserve history unless you’re certain it’s no longer needed. If you are not an admin, you must ask your Jira admin to give you permission to delete the Epic.
Can an Epic contain an Epic?
No, in Jira an Epic cannot contain another Epic by default. The Epic is the highest issue type in the standard hierarchy. If your team needs to group multiple Epics together, you can use higher-level constructs like Initiatives (available in Advanced Roadmaps or with custom configuration). This allows you to manage cross-epic work without breaking the hierarchy, while still ensuring visibility and alignment across broader programs or portfolios.
How to write a Jira Story?
A good Jira Story should be user-focused, clear, and deliver value. The common format is: “As a [user], I want [goal] so that [benefit].” Keep it small enough to complete within a sprint, and include acceptance criteria to define when the story is done. Add relevant details like priority, components, or links to designs. This ensures stories are actionable, testable, and tied to user or business needs.
How to delete a Jira Task?
To delete a Jira Task, open the issue, select the “More” (⋯) menu → Delete, and confirm. Like Epics, deleting a Task is permanent and cannot be undone. If the Task has Sub-tasks, Jira will prompt you to delete those as well. In many cases, it’s safer to mark the Task as “Done” or close it, so you keep the historical record for reporting and accountability. If you are not an admin, you must ask your Jira admin to give you permission to delete the task.