How to Add a Story to an Epic in Jira

Updated on:

May 11, 2026

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Use this interactive demo to learn how to link a story as a child issue inside a Jira epic.

Quick summary

Adding a story to an epic in Jira lets teams organize related work under a single high-level initiative. Use the child issue feature on any epic to search, select, and link stories directly from the issue view.

Steps

Open the epic issue you want to add stories to.
Click Add a child issue on the epic's issue page.
Select Story as the issue type from the dropdown.
Search for the story by issue key or title to find the correct issue.
Click Add to link the story to the epic.
The story is now successfully added as a child issue of the epic in Jira.

📌 Why this matters

Linking stories to epics in Jira is essential for effective agile project management, giving teams a clear hierarchy that connects day-to-day tasks to broader business goals. When stories are properly nested under an epic, project managers gain instant visibility into progress, scope, and delivery timelines across sprints. This structured relationship between epics and child issues helps teams prioritize work, reduce duplication, and keep backlogs organized. Teams using Jira's epic-story hierarchy consistently deliver more predictable and well-scoped releases.

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