Epic

An epic is a large chunk of work that can't be completed in a single task — so it's split into several smaller tasks that all roll up under one heading. "Build user authentication" is an epic; "add login form," "wire up OAuth," and "write password-reset flow" are the tasks inside it. The epic exists to give a group of related work a shared name and a shared goal.

Where epics sit in the hierarchy

Most agile tools use a three-level hierarchy: epics contain stories (or tasks), which may contain subtasks. An epic is the coarsest unit you'd track on a roadmap; a subtask is the finest unit you'd check off in a day. Some tools add a fourth level above epics ("initiative" or "theme") for quarterly planning.

When epics help

Epics are useful when a single goal spans weeks and many tasks, and you want to track overall progress without losing the detail. They let a stakeholder ask "how's authentication going?" and get a percentage answer, while the team still works task-by-task underneath. They also keep a backlog readable by collapsing twenty related items into one expandable group.

When epics are overkill

For a solo developer or a tiny team, formal epics often add a layer of bookkeeping without payoff. If "build authentication" is just five cards you'll finish this week, grouping them under a tracked epic object is ceremony. A simple label or a shared prefix in card titles does the same job with no extra structure.

How GritShip handles this

GritShip keeps the hierarchy flat: tasks, with one optional level of subtasks (a Pro feature). There's no separate epic object, because the small teams it targets rarely run work big enough to need three tracking levels. A label is the lightweight substitute when you want to group related cards.