A Jira dependency map of one epic’s chain

“Where are the dependencies?” is easier to answer with a picture: the epic on one side, everything it waits on behind it, and the chain that decides its date. On Atlassian Community it reads “see which Jira work items … my work item is connected to in other Jira Spaces” (Community, February 2026). This page says what Jira draws by itself, then what Blockline draws.

What Jira does by itself

• The timeline draws arrows between epics of one space, red when the dates overlap (Atlassian). On Free and Standard it stays inside the space.
• Plans draws dependencies across spaces, on Premium and Enterprise, between issues that are both in the plan.
• Every issue lists its links under Linked work items, grouped by link type. One level: to see what a blocker waits on, open the blocker.

Drawing it by hand

For one epic, one level at a time:

1. issue in linkedIssues("STOR-1", "is blocked by") and parent = STOR-1 give the epic’s direct blockers and its stories.
2. For each story, issue in linkedIssues("STOR-4", "is blocked by") gives what it waits on, often in another space.
3. Repeat for each blocker until the chain ends, and write each issue’s date beside it.

Three levels deep it is a whiteboard or a diagram tool, redrawn whenever a link or a date changes. Most teams stop at the first level, which is where the epic looks fine.

With Blockline

Blockline is our app. It draws one epic’s chain from the links you already have:

1. On any epic, open the Blockline panel and press Show dependency map, or press Map on a row of the risk board.
2. The epic is on the right, what it waits on upstream to the left, up to three levels. Solid lines mean “waits on”, dashed lines “part of”: the stories it comes through are drawn.
3. Each box shows its key, summary, date and the risk it brings to the epic, with a short cause: “At risk · 6 days late”, “Watch · no date”, “OK · on track”.
4. The path that ends latest is drawn in blue: the chain that decides the epic’s date.
5. Hover a box for the full reason; click it, or Tab to it and press Enter, to open that issue.

Reading the map

• Start from the blue path. It ends latest, so it decides the epic’s date; a box on it that is At risk is the first call to make.
• An orange box with no date of its own is a story that brings its blocker’s lateness to the epic: “STOR-4 · no date · At risk · 6 days late” is the link the conversation is about, not a story to date.
• A yellow box brings Watch: no date, not started, nobody on it, or in progress for weeks. Nothing is late yet; nothing says it will not be.
• The epic opens at the right. A long chain is wider than the window: the line under it says “Scroll left for what it waits on upstream”.
• Upstream only. The map draws what the epic waits on. What a blocker holds up is in its own panel, under Holding up, and in its space’s Holding up others tab.

The map agrees with the panel’s Waiting on list, so a box that is on time itself but makes the epic late reads At risk. How each view opens is in Getting started; which epics need a map first is in Find the epics blocked by another team. More on the Blockline home page.