How to create a GitHub issue

With GitHub Issues, you can track your development work and define tasks that need to be completed. Learn exactly what they are and how to use them.

GitHub is the most widely used Git distributed version control system deployment service on the market. GitHub not only gives you access to Git and hosted repositories, but also includes access control, software feature requests, task management, continuous integration, wikis, and bug tracking.

What are GitHub issues?

One feature you should start using as soon as possible is GitHub Issues, which allows you to create issues from a repository as well as a to-do list item, project note, comment, specific line of code, or URL query. Issues can be created from the web UI, the GitHub desktop app, the command line, and other sources.

With GitHub Issues you can:

• create problems.
• track work.
• To stay updated.
• Manage a project.
• Communicate.
• Compare and discuss problems.

Each GitHub issue has a creator and assignee, and is prioritized using the GitHub project board. GitHub Issues is free to use with no restrictions.

Don’t confuse GitHub Issues with a bug tracking tool. Instead, think of it as a general tracking tool for any project, keeping you up-to-date on progress, collaboration, tasks, feature requests, and more. With GitHub Issues, you can keep your work and plans in sync. Every GitHub repository has an associated issues tool.

If you go to your main GitHub page, you’ll see an Issues tab at the top (Figure A).

Figure A

If you click on the Issues tab, you will get a list of all issues for each project. In this overview, you can click to view and interact with an issue, but you cannot create an issue. Let’s find out how to create one.

what you will need

The only things you need for this are a valid GitHub account and at least one repository. That’s it: let’s create.

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How to create an issue with GitHub Issues

The first thing you need to do is log into your GitHub account.

Then navigate to a repository. You will see the “Issues” tab (Figure B).

Figure B

Click the Issues tab, and then click New Issue (Figure C).

Figure C

In the resulting window (Figure D), give the issue a title, and then type the text in the Write tab.

Figure D

The issue editor accepts markdown, or you can format body text via the toolbar. Formatting from the toolbar simply adds the markup to the text (Figure E).

Figure E

When you’re done writing the issue, click Submit a new issue to save your work.

A few pointers to creating your article:

• To directly mention a team member, click the @ symbol in the formatting toolbar.
• To reference another issue, pull request, or discussion, click the chat icon with a right arrow pointing up.
• To add a saved reply, click the left arrow on the formatting toolbar.
• Assigning an issue occurs once the issue is created.

How to assign an issue

Assigning an issue cannot be done in the build window. Instead, return to the main “Issue” tab from your GitHub dashboard. Next, check the box for the issue you want to assign, and then select the Assign dropdown menu. Select the team member you want to assign (Figure F).

Figure F

After you assign an issue, the assignee’s profile photo will appear in the listing.

While working on an issue, you can either close the issue as closed or as unscheduled. An “As Closed” finish means the issue has been closed, fixed, or resolved. The Close as unscheduled option is used when an issue cannot be fixed, reproduced, duplicated, or is out of date.

Start working with issues now

If GitHub is your favorite developer repository or version control platform, you owe it to yourself to start using Issues. Not only can you better keep track of issues, but you can also better track the progress of your project, keeping everyone involved in the loop.

GitHub Issues should be considered an indispensable tool. Start now with issues to improve your GitHub workflow.

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