Skip to content
Foundation Docs

Flex Items (folders)

A Flex Item is a row in a lens that isn’t a Jira issue. Think of it as a folder, heading, or container. Flex Items are Foundation-only — they don’t appear in Jira, don’t consume Jira API rate limits, and don’t need a Jira project to exist.

Use Flex Items to create structure that doesn’t map to a Jira parent relationship: themes, workstreams, quarters, swimlanes, stakeholder buckets, or anything else.

You need edit permission on the lens.

Create a Flex Item

Section titled “Create a Flex Item”
  1. Open the lens.
  2. (Optional) Select a row first if you want the Flex Item to be its child.
  3. In the toolbar, open the + Add menu and choose Create Flex Item. (Or click the + Flex Item shortcut in the toolbar, if visible.)
  4. Enter a Name (required), for example Discovery, H1 2026, or At-risk initiatives.
  5. Optionally enter a Description.
  6. Click Create.

The Flex Item appears as a new row. It’s marked with a folder-style icon to distinguish it from Jira issues.

Put issues inside a Flex Item

Section titled “Put issues inside a Flex Item”
  1. Drag any issue row onto the Flex Item row. A drop indicator shows whether the drop will create a child, a sibling, or a reorder.
  2. Release when the indicator highlights the Flex Item.

You can also use indent / outdent (Tab / Shift+Tab in some contexts, or the toolbar’s indent controls) to move selected rows under the row above.

Nest Flex Items

Section titled “Nest Flex Items”

Flex Items can contain other Flex Items. This is how you build multi-level structure that ignores Jira’s hierarchy entirely.

Example:

H1 2026 (Flex Item)
├── Growth (Flex Item)
│   ├── FND-101  Self-serve signup
│   └── FND-115  Pricing page experiment
└── Retention (Flex Item)
    └── FND-204  Onboarding email series

Rename or edit a Flex Item

Section titled “Rename or edit a Flex Item”
  1. Click the Summary cell of the Flex Item to enter edit mode, or double-click the cell.
  2. Type the new name and press Enter.

To change the description, open the lens Inspector Panel (right sidebar) while the Flex Item is selected.

Convert a Flex Item to a Jira issue

Section titled “Convert a Flex Item to a Jira issue”

If a Flex Item has grown into real work that needs a Jira ticket:

  1. Select the Flex Item.
  2. Use the row’s context menu and choose Convert to Jira issue.
  3. Pick a project and issue type, then confirm.

The row’s children (issues and nested Flex Items) stay where they are, now underneath the new Jira issue.

Delete a Flex Item

Section titled “Delete a Flex Item”

Deleting a Flex Item removes only the folder row. Its children move up one level by default. See Remove vs. delete.

Section titled “Related”