Does Jira Core provide any comment reply (parent) information via REST API?

Jira Development Jira Server
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I’m currently using the Jira Cloud REST API and I have a question regarding comment reply support in Jira Core (Work Management) projects.

From what I can see, the comment API (/rest/api/3/issue/{issueIdOrKey}/comment) does not provide any field that indicates a reply relationship, such as a parent comment ID.

I’d like to confirm the following:

  1. Does Jira Core (projectTypeKey = “business”) provide any official way to identify comment replies or parent comment IDs via the REST API?

  2. If not, is there any documented reason or product limitation explaining why reply/threaded comments are not available in Core/Software projects?

  3. What is the recommended approach for displaying threaded comments when using Jira Core?

    • Should this be implemented using custom comment properties?

    • Or should reply relationships be stored in an external database?

My understanding so far is:

  • Jira Core and Jira Software only support flat comments, with no reply or thread structure in the underlying data model.

  • Only Jira Service Management provides a parent comment identifier via comment properties (e.g., sd.public.comment.parent.id).

  • Therefore, reply relationships cannot be retrieved for existing comments in Core/Software projects, unless they were manually stored as custom properties.

Can you confirm whether this understanding is correct, and advise on the recommended way to support threaded comment UI in Jira Core?

Thanks!

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Hello @LunaJEChoi

It’s a little difficult to understand your question, as you have jumbled up many different topics and features of the different ‘flavours’ of Jira and its modules all together.

I’m going to start with the assumption that your intent is to discuss only the ‘core’ REST API of the Jira Cloud product, not all other stuff you’ve mentioned, and answer just the final questions you asked, based on that assumption:

Jira Cloud’s core REST API only supports flat comments, with no reply or thread structure in the underlying data model.

Correct. There is currently no support via the REST API for managing threaded comments.

Only Jira Service Management provides a parent comment identifier via comment properties (e.g., sd.public.comment.parent.id)

I do not know how you came to that ‘understanding’. Unless you can provide a full, coded example that shows how to make a request to a JSM REST API comment endpoint and produce that sd.public.comment.parent.id property, I’m going say that it does not exist!

Therefore, reply relationships cannot be retrieved for existing comments in Core/Software projects, unless they were manually stored as custom properties.

I do not know what you mean by ‘custom properties’. What type of property? Who or what created that property? What do you mean by ‘manually’… a human created it?

To summarise what I think the essential question you were trying to ask:

Q: Does Jira’s REST API (or any of the REST APIs of the Software, Work Management or Service Management modules) currently support managing the threaded comments that can be used in the Jira / Jira Service Management GUI?

A: Nope!

Can I suggest that next time, before you ask the question, you try using a public AI tool like Google / ChatGPT first. The topic of Jira’s REST API’s lack of support for threaded comments has already been discussed many times, in many places, such as this thread in the public Jira Community forum very recently, so it’s considered to be ‘common knowledge’ now. Also, if you search JAC, you’ll probably find the matching feature requests on the topic.

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Thank you for your response!