Links & Relationships
Relation Types
ADO supports several relation types between work items. Migrayt maps these to Jira issue link types as follows:
| ADO Relation Type | Direction | Jira Link Type |
|---|---|---|
System.LinkTypes.Related | Bidirectional | Relates |
System.LinkTypes.Dependency-Forward | A blocks B | Blocks |
System.LinkTypes.Dependency-Reverse | A is blocked by B | Blocks (inverted) |
System.LinkTypes.Duplicate-Forward | A duplicates B | Duplicate |
System.LinkTypes.Duplicate-Reverse | A is duplicated by B | Duplicate (inverted) |
System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Forward | Parent → Child | Set as Jira parent (not a link) |
System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Reverse | Child → Parent | Resolved via parent field |
Hierarchy relations
Hierarchy relations in ADO define the parent-child tree (Epic → Feature → Story → Task). These are not migrated as Jira issue links. Instead, Migrayt sets the Jira parent field (for sub-tasks) or Epic Link field (for Stories under Epics), which creates the correct structural hierarchy in Jira.
Issue links
All non-hierarchy relations are migrated as Jira issue links in Phase 4 of execution, after all work items have been created. This ensures both ends of each link exist before the link is written.
If one end of a link refers to an item that was filtered out of the migration (e.g. via type filter or area filter), the link is skipped. Skipped links are counted in the post-migration report.
Link Creation Order
Links are always created last (after items, comments, and attachments) to ensure referential integrity. A link from ADO item #100 to ADO item #200 is only created in Jira once both ado-id-100 and ado-id-200 exist as Jira issues.
Jira Link Type Requirements
The Jira project must have the following link types enabled for full link migration:
| Jira Link Type | Required for |
|---|---|
| Relates | System.LinkTypes.Related |
| Blocks | System.LinkTypes.Dependency-* |
| Duplicate | System.LinkTypes.Duplicate-* |
These are standard Jira link types present in all Jira Cloud projects by default. If your project has removed or renamed them, link creation for those types will fail silently (the work items are still created correctly).
External Links
ADO items can have relations to external URLs (e.g. GitHub commits, pull requests, external references). These are not migrated to Jira because Jira does not have a generic external URL relation type. External URLs are preserved in the item description as plain text if they appear in the description or comments fields.