Feature: Add issue relations support (blocking/blocked by)

[g-click-trade]

Issue co-written with dear assistant Claude Code 🤖

Feature Request

Add support for reading and managing issue relations (blocking, blocked by, related, duplicate).

Current Behavior

linearis issues read does not return relations, and there's no way to create/manage them via CLI.

Proposed Solution

Reading Relations

Include relations in issues read output:

{
  "identifier": "ENG-123",
  "relations": [
    {"type": "blocks", "issue": "ENG-124"},
    {"type": "blocked_by", "issue": "ENG-100"},
    {"type": "related", "issue": "ENG-200"}
  ]
}

Managing Relations

Option A: New subcommand

# Add relation
linearis issues relate ENG-123 --blocks ENG-124
linearis issues relate ENG-123 --blocked-by ENG-100
linearis issues relate ENG-123 --related ENG-200
linearis issues relate ENG-123 --duplicate-of ENG-50

# Remove relation
linearis issues unrelate ENG-123 --blocks ENG-124

Option B: Via update command

linearis issues update ENG-123 --blocks ENG-124
linearis issues update ENG-123 --blocked-by ENG-100

Linear API Reference

Uses issueRelationCreate mutation with IssueRelationType enum:

• blocks
• duplicate
• related

Use Case

Managing dependencies between issues programmatically, especially useful for automation and bulk operations.

[g-click-trade]

Workaround available: https://gist.github.com/g-click-trade/3d73f0492abd2e5c75baa863053867dc

# Get relations
python linearis_workarounds.py relation get ENG-123

# Add blocked_by
python linearis_workarounds.py relation add ENG-123 --blocked-by ENG-100

# Add blocks
python linearis_workarounds.py relation add ENG-123 --blocks ENG-200

# Add related
python linearis_workarounds.py relation add ENG-123 --related ENG-300

# Remove relation
python linearis_workarounds.py relation remove RELATION_UUID

[iamfj]

I would extend Option B as well with --related-to.

linearis issues update ENG-123 --blocks ENG-124
linearis issues update ENG-123 --blocked-by ENG-100
linearis issues update ENN-123 --related-to ENG-99

// EDIT: a pr was already created #24

[iamfj]

Hey @g-click-trade, quick update on this!

We're currently working on a major update to the Linearis CLI (living in the next branch — see #45 for the full picture). It includes a complete architecture redesign, GraphQL codegen migration, a new auth system, and more.

This update also includes full issue relations support, building on your original proposal (Option B style, integrated into create and update). Here's what it looks like:

# Set relations during issue creation
linearis issues create "Fix auth flow" --team ENG --blocks ENG-124
linearis issues create "Investigate flaky test" --team ENG --blocked-by ENG-100

# Add relations when updating existing issues
linearis issues update ENG-123 --related ENG-200
linearis issues update ENG-123 --duplicate ENG-50

# Multiple relation types are supported:
#   --blocks, --blocked-by, --related, --duplicate

Relations are also included in the issues read output, so you won't need the Python workaround anymore.

Thanks a lot for filing this issue and sharing that workaround script — it clearly showed the demand for this feature, and your proposed API shaped how we approached the implementation. Shout-out to @ralfschimmel as well for #24, which tackled this independently.

The next branch is still in progress, but this feature is fully implemented and tested there. We'll keep this issue updated as things move toward a release.