Why is it called an issue key when an issue is just one of many ticket types?

[Jacob Saunders]

There are many ticket types in Jira: Issue, Action, Defect, etc. Issue is just one of them. However at the same time, the term "issues" is used to describe all tickets- not only ticket type=issue tickets. The same is true for the issue key: defects, actions, etc. all have issue keys, they are not called "defect keys," etc. My first thought is that maybe a while ago, the only issue type was an issue, and then when other ticket types were rolled out, Jira just continued to use the term "issue key" and did not change the name. It is just confusing how "issue" is used to describe all tickets, not only issue tickets. Does anyone know why/ the history behind this?

[Tomislav Tobijas · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jacob Saunders ,

One thing worth mentioning straight away is that "issues" are being renamed to "work"/"work items" as we speak. You can read more about that here: It's here: 'Work' is the new collective term for all items you track in Jira

As for history - Jira was initial built and used by software development teams for tracking bugs/issues. Then it got upgraded to track other items such as stories, tasks,... Now we have different types and multiple products/apps such as JSM, JPD and such where you have numerous different and new types.
The term 'issues' just stayed from a while back 👀

And regarding this:

There are many ticket types in Jira: Issue, Action, Defect, etc. Issue is just one of them.

Item type "Issue" isn't something that you'll get out of the box. Meaning, someone probably created a custom type named "Issue" on the instance you're working on.

Additional (official) resource on the topic: Jira work items overview 

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tobi