Problem Definition

At the moment, Linking between epics and story (or epic and initiave) requires Edit issue permission for both issue, since it's updating issue fields. This limits the admin's ability to restrict this permission (to be able to link epics) to specific user.

Suggested Solution

It would be great to have a separate permission for this action.

Workaround

If you do not wish to give the users permissions to edit issue in the project where epics are created, you may consider one of the following options:

• Manage field-level permissions in the "program" project via ScriptRunner Behaviours. Note this will introduce additional complexity to your setup.
• Create an issue link type to simulate the epic assignment (is parent epic of /is epic child of) and add an automation rule via Automation for Jira with an issue linked trigger. This way, you may only grant users the linking permissions and not all edit permissions and let the automation user set the actual "Epic Link" field.
• Move all epics to a separate project (that's reserved only for epics) and make them editable by all users in linked projects.