Epics

Tier: Premium, Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

An epic in GitLab represents a significant body of work that can be broken down into smaller, manageable parts. Epics help organize user stories and features into a high-level theme or goal, making them a flexible tool for managing projects of all sizes.

Epics often span multiple iterations or a longer period of time, reaching their conclusion when the defined goals are met. Teams use epics to stay focused and aligned with their project timelines.

In the Ultimate tier, create hierarchical structures to align with various agile frameworks using nested epics. Break down complex projects into more manageable child epics, which can further contain their own sets of issues and tasks. This nested structure helps maintain clarity and ensures all aspects of a project are covered without losing sight of the overarching goals.

Use epics to:

  • Break down large features into smaller deliverables that incrementally add user value.
  • Track the progress of a group of related issues, specifying when the work is scheduled to start and end.
  • Facilitate high-level discussions and collaboration on feature ideas and scope, ensuring alignment with the broader project objectives.
  • Organize complex projects into a hierarchy of work with nested epics, providing a clear structure
  • while connecting items to the larger goals of the project.
  • Collect smaller issues (user stories) for detailed tracking and efficient task management.

By using epics effectively, teams can create visual roadmaps, monitor progress, and achieve their goals in the set time frames, driving successful project outcomes.

See the video: GitLab Epics - Setting up your Organization with GitLab.

Relationships between epics and other items

The possible relationships between epics and other items are:

  • An epic is the parent of one or more issues.
  • An epic is the parent of one or more child epics. Ultimate only.
  • An epic is linked to one or more task, objective, or key result. Your administrator must have enabled the new look for epics.

Example set of relationships:

%%{init: { "fontFamily": "GitLab Sans" }}%% graph TD accTitle: Epics and issues accDescr: How issues and child epics relate to parent epics and lateral relationships to work items %% Main structure %% Parent_epic -->|contains| Issue1 Parent_epic -->|contains| Child_epic Child_epic -->|contains| Issue2 %% Additional work items and lateral relationships %% Issue1 -- contains --> Task1["Task"] Issue2 -- "blocked by" --> Objective1["Objective"] Task1 -- blocking --> KeyResult1["Key Result"] %% Work items linked to epics and issues %% Parent_epic -. related .- Objective1 Child_epic -. "blocked by" .- KeyResult1

Child issues from different group hierarchies

History
  • Introduced in GitLab 15.5 with a flag named epic_issues_from_different_hierarchies. Disabled by default.
  • Enabled on GitLab.com in GitLab 15.5.
  • Feature flag epic_issues_from_different_hierarchies removed in GitLab 15.6.

You can add issues from a different group hierarchy to an epic. To do it, paste the issue URL when adding an existing issue.

Roadmap in epics

Tier: Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

If your epic contains one or more child epics that have a start or due date, you can go to a roadmap of the child epics from the epic.

Child epics roadmap

If your administrator enabled the new look for epics:

  • On the Child items section header, select More actions () > View on a roadmap.

A roadmap filtered for the parent epic opens.