How to add a new keyword (label?) for issues / pull requests?

[MichaelWhitall]

Hi all,

On the trac-based ticket system I frequently used project keywords to identify and group tickets that belonged to a given project (e.g. the keyword "comorph"). How can I do this on github issues / pull requests?

A lot of the familiar keywords are available under the "labels" field on each issue / PR, but I can't find a way to make a new "label"; it only lets me choose from existing ones.

Then there's also a field on each issue / PR called "Projects"; maybe my project keyword should go in there rather than in a label? But again I can't figure out how to edit this as I want.

And crucially, once I've added my project keywords to my issues and PRs, how can I view a list of the ones which have a given keyword, with the status of each one displayed in the list?

Cheers!
Mike

[James Frost (jfrost-mo)]

Labels are the standard way of grouping and filtering issues and pull requests, however they are specific to a single repository, and can only be modified by the owners of that repository. Milestones can also be used within a single repository for tracking progress towards a specific goal.

For managing issue/pull requests across different repositories, you will want to look at GitHub Projects. Projects are a much more featureful way of managing things, and allow many different project management activities. A good example is the Project for the Met Office git and GitHub docs: https://github.com/orgs/MetOffice/projects/214

Finally, if instead of project management you want to keep track of your issues and pull requests, you can use the buttons in the top right corner of GitHub:

These give a list of issues create by, assigned to, or commented on by you. Similarly there is a list of pull requests created by, assigned to, or that request a review from you.

[Andrew Coughtrie (andrewcoughtrie)]

To extend James Frost (@jfrost-mo) answer. The use of Projects for managing your own (or a groups) filtering (a la trac keywords) is the way to go. If we gave everyone the ability to have their own labels we would soon have a thousand different labels (probably with duplicates) making their use unmanageable in the larger repos. If you add your issue or PR to a project you can add your own categories and the filter and manage appropriately in there, this will also work across repos allowing you keep linked tickets side by side where you can watch their state.

[MichaelWhitall]

Awesome thanks James and Andrew,

Yes Projects sounds perfect for what I've been asked to do, which is maintain a list of work items in the effort to lodge all code needed by the UP project, with quickly-viewable details about the status of each item (so management can easily monitor progress). So I'll have a go at setting up a Project :) ...

Cheers!
Mike

[Alan J Hewitt (alanjhewitt)]

as a follow up to Mike's question.

do we still need the collab:xxxx label or is this now redundant as github will automatically keep track of partner contributions ?