Issue fields: Structured issue metadata is in public preview

Source: GitHub Changelog

Overview

Issue fields are now available in public preview for select GitHub organizations.

If you’ve been using labels like priority/p0 or severity/high to track structured data in issues, you know the limitations: no types, no validation, no consistency across repositories, and no way to report on them. Issue fields replace unstructured text in the issue body and label‑based workarounds with typed, org‑wide metadata that’s searchable, reportable, and consistent across every repository.

Default fields

Out of the box, every organization gets four fields preconfigured and pinned to the right issue types:

• Priority
• Effort
• Start date
• Target date

Create a bug, and you’ll see Priority and Effort in the sidebar. Create a feature and you get all four.

Customization

Organization admins can customize everything:

• Four field types – Single select, text, number, and date (up to 25 fields per organization).
• Pin fields to issue types – Control which fields show up for bugs, features, tasks, your custom types, or issues without a type.
• Search and filter – Find issues by field values across repositories.
• Projects integration – Add issue fields as columns in project views to group, filter, and sort (currently only supported in private projects).
• Timeline events – Track who changed which field and when.
• Full API support – REST and GraphQL APIs for field settings and values, plus field_added and field_removed webhook events for GitHub Actions.

Access

Issue fields are rolling out to a selection of organizations. To request access for your organization, comment in the community discussion with your organization name and use case.

Learn more

For detailed documentation, see the issue fields documentation.