About GitHub Issues
Overview
GitHub Issues is the built-in issue tracking and project planning tool in every GitHub repository. It lets developers plan work, track issues, and discuss what they build using GitHub Flavored Markdown, mentions, emoji reactions, and attachments — all in a single timeline.
Teams pair Issues with Projects to break complex work into sub-issues, add custom fields, and automate planning with workflows. GitHub reports more than 150 million people use the platform to discover, fork, and contribute to over 420 million projects.
Key Benefits
- Break large issues into sub-issues and follow their status with progress indicators.
- Add custom fields for iterations, priority, story points, dates, notes, and links.
- Track iteration and milestone health with project insights and a burn up chart.
- Share and reuse project templates to start new work with a single click.
- Automate triage, custom field values, and issue archiving with workflows.
- Switch between boards, tables, and roadmaps and save views for sprints, backlogs, teams, or releases.
How It Works
Create an issue in any repository and break it into sub-issues with progress indicators. Add custom fields from the issue sidebar, organize work into projects, and switch between board, table, and roadmap views. Automate triage and archiving with workflows, then monitor health with project insights and a burn up chart. Manage everything with keyboard shortcuts, GitHub CLI, or the GitHub Mobile apps.
Use Cases
- Development teams track sprints and backlogs with saved project views, swimlanes, and work-in-progress limits.
- Engineering managers monitor iteration and milestone health using project insights and burn up charts.
- Product teams plan features and large-scale releases with projects, milestones, and custom fields.
- Open source maintainers triage incoming issues automatically with workflows and templates.
- Individual developers create and update issues from the terminal with GitHub CLI.
Why Choose This Product
GitHub Issues is built directly into every repository, keeping project management close to the code. It adapts to any methodology with flexible boards, tables, and roadmaps, so teams can stop reaching for spreadsheets and third-party tools that go stale.
GitHub Issues Pros & Cons
- Free tier of Issues and Projects available to all users
- Issue tracking built directly into every repository
- Custom fields, project insights, and burn up charts for planning
- Accessible via GitHub CLI, mobile apps, and keyboard shortcuts
- Automated workflows for triage, field updates, and archiving
Key Features
Sub-issues
Break complex issues into sub-issues and track their status with progress indicators in one view.
Custom fields
Track metadata like iterations, priority, story points, dates, notes, and links, editable from the issue sidebar.
Project insights
Monitor the health of iteration cycles, milestones, and custom fields with a burn up chart.
Project templates
Create reusable templates to share best practices and start new projects with a single click.
Automated workflows
Automatically triage issues, set custom field values, and archive issues.
Flexible views
Switch between boards, tables, and roadmaps and save views for sprints, backlogs, teams, or releases.
Keyboard shortcuts
Filter, sort, group, and assign issues with keyboard shortcuts so hands never leave the keyboard.
GitHub CLI
View, update, and create issues without leaving the terminal.
GitHub Mobile
Create and manage issues on the go with native iOS and Android apps.
Markdown conversations
Express ideas with GitHub Flavored Markdown, mention contributors, react with emoji, and attach files.
GitHub Issues Pricing
View full pricing →- Unlimited public/private repositories
- Dependabot security and version updates
- 2,000 CI/CD minutes per month
- 500MB of Packages storage
- Issues & Projects
- Community support
- Everything included in Free
- Access to GitHub Codespaces
- Repository rules
- Multiple reviewers and draft pull requests
- 3,000 CI/CD minutes per month
- 2GB of Packages storage and web-based support
- Everything included in Team
- Data residency on Microsoft Azure
- Enterprise security, compliance, and flexible deployment
| Feature | Free Free/mo | Team $4/mo | Enterprise $21/mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited public/private repositories | |||
| Dependabot security and version updates | |||
| 2,000 CI/CD minutes per month | |||
| 500MB of Packages storage | |||
| Issues & Projects | |||
| Community support | |||
| Everything included in Free | |||
| Access to GitHub Codespaces | |||
| Repository rules | |||
| Multiple reviewers and draft pull requests | |||
| 3,000 CI/CD minutes per month | |||
| 2GB of Packages storage and web-based support | |||
| Everything included in Team | |||
| Data residency on Microsoft Azure | |||
| Enterprise security, compliance, and flexible deployment |
Pricing extracted from the product website and may change. Check the source for current details.
Frequently asked questions about GitHub Issues
What is GitHub Issues?
GitHub Issues is GitHub's built-in way to plan work, track issues, and discuss what you build, available in every repository. It supports GitHub Flavored Markdown, assigning and mentioning contributors, emoji reactions, attachments and videos, plus references to commits, pull requests, and deploys. Task lists let you break big issues into tasks and organize with milestones, labels, and dependencies.
What are Projects?
Projects connect your planning directly to the work your teams are doing. Built like a spreadsheet, project tables give you a live canvas to filter, sort, and group issues and pull requests. You can use it, or the accompanying project board, with custom fields to track a sprint, plan a feature, or manage a large-scale release.
What plans have access to Projects?
All users have access to the free tier of GitHub Issues and Projects. Paid tiers are available and documented on GitHub's pricing page for teams that need additional features and capacity.
Will the new Projects experience be available in GitHub Enterprise Server?
Yes. GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) support follows GitHub's regular cadence of one to two quarters before enabling the on-premises functionality.
Is GitHub Issues free?
GitHub Issues offers a free plan with optional paid upgrades. See the pricing section for what's included in each tier.
How much does GitHub Issues cost?
GitHub Issues offers the following plans: Free, Team, Enterprise. See the pricing section for what's included in each tier and any per-seat or usage-based costs.