You may mention fixed issues in commit message to link issues with commits, which is much powerful (further link pull requests and builds with issues, generate release notes). For instance: fix OD-2482

You may mention fixed issues in commit message to link issues with commits, which is much powerful (further link pull requests and builds with issues, generate release notes). For instance: fix OD-2482

Is "fix" a customizable keyword? I basically want all commits(or a branch) linked to an issue so that if a dev needs assistance BEFORE the issue is actually "fixed," I can trace exactly what they were doing. I definitely would like to reserve "fix" to mean the commit completes the work on the issue.

Also, is there a reason that a custom issue field can be of type commit but not branch?

This can be customizable. See below screenshot:

A custom field of branch type can be added if there is usage scenarios for it.

Also it is possible to create a branch automatically when issue transited to a certain state. To do so:

1. Add a CI/CD job trigged automatically when issue transited to certain state, for instance Work in Progress
2. Add a step to the job to create branch, with name for instance: wip-@issue_number@

Ah, I misunderstood what was meant by "fix," I tried it out and it's exactly what I'm looking for. I thought it would automatically close the issue or something like that. Thank you.

I still feel like the ability to have a custom field that holds a reference to a related branch is valuable, so that I can just click it to jump to the branch.

The ideal workflow would be to automatically create the branch and then store a reference to the branch on the issue with a CI/CD job.

I thought it would automatically close the issue or something like that

This is actually configurable via issue state transitions (Administration / Issue Settings). By default, issue will be transited to "Closed" state when a commit fixing it is pushed to main branch.