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How risk is judged

Blockline builds one graph from the dependency links in a view, gives every issue a date, and runs seven rules over every link. Each rule raises a level and a one-line reason. No level is ever shown without its reason, and the level is always written out, never shown by colour alone.

The four levels

From best to worst: OK, Watch, At risk and Blocked.

The rules

  • Circular dependency (Blocked): issues wait on each other in a loop.
  • Late blocker (At risk): the blocker’s date is after the waiting issue’s date.
  • Stalled blocker (At risk): the blocker is still To Do within 10 days of the waiting issue’s date.
  • Overdue (At risk): the issue’s own date has passed and it is not done.
  • Unscheduled blocker (Watch): the waiting issue has a date, the blocker has none.
  • Idle blocker (Watch): the blocker has been in progress for 14 days or more.
  • Unowned blocker (Watch): the blocker has no assignee and is in no open sprint.

The 10 and 14 days are the defaults; a Jira admin can change both in Settings. “Idle” counts from the blocker’s last change of status category, so a blocker that moved to In progress three weeks ago and stayed there is idle.

Epics inherit what their stories wait on

An epic waits on everything its stories and subtasks wait on outside the epic. A blocker two levels down therefore flags the epic too, and the reason names the child it came through: “Blocked by PAYC-3 via STOR-4”. A link between two children of the same epic is internal and does not count against the epic.

Rules judge every dependency, direct or inherited, against the waiting issue’s own date.

Rolling up

An issue’s level is the worst of its own flags and its children’s levels, so a late story turns its epic At risk, and the epic turns its initiative At risk. The reason shown for an issue is its most severe flag; among equals, the one with the earliest date impact.

What counts as done

Any status whose status category is Done. Status names are never used, so renamed and custom workflows make no difference. Done issues raise no flag, and a done blocker clears the flags it caused.

When a view is too large

A view judges up to 5,000 issues at once, counting the scope, every child and every linked issue. Past that it says so and shows no numbers rather than partial ones. Narrow the scope to fewer spaces, a saved filter or JQL.