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Quickstart for GitHub Issues

Follow this brief interactive guide to learn about GitHub Issues.

Introduction

This guide demonstrates how to use GitHub Issues to plan and track a piece of work. In this guide, you will create a new issue and break it down into sub-issues. You'll also learn how to add labels, issue types, milestones, assignees, and projects to communicate metadata about your issue.

Prerequisites

To create an issue, you need a repository. You can use an existing repository that you have write access to, or you can create a new repository. The repository must have issues enabled. For more information about creating a repository, see Ein neues Repository erstellen. For more information about enabling issues if they are disabled in your repository, see Issues deaktivieren.

Opening a blank issue

First, create an issue. There are multiple ways to create an issue; you can choose the most convenient method for your workflow. This example will use the GitHub UI. For more information about other ways to create an issue, see Einen Issue erstellen.

  1. Navigieren Sie auf GitHub zur Hauptseite des Repositorys.

  2. Klicke unter dem Namen deines Repositorys auf -Issues.

    Screenshot der Hauptseite eines Repositorys. In der horizontalen Navigationsleiste ist eine Registerkarte mit der Bezeichnung „Issues“ dunkelorange umrandet.

  3. Klicke auf Neues Issue.

  4. In this example, we will start with a blank issue. Your repository may use issue templates and issue forms to encourage contributors to provide specific information. If your repository uses issue templates, click Open a blank issue.

Filling in information

Give your issue a descriptive title. The title should convey at a glance what the issue is about.

Add a description that explains the purpose of the issue, including any details that might help resolve the issue. For example, if this is a bug report, describe the steps to reproduce the bug, the expected result, and the actual result.

You can use markdown to add formatting, links, emojis, and more. For more information, see Schreiben auf GitHub.

Screenshot of the new issue form, with a title and body filled in.

Adding a task list

You can also use plain text to track tasks that don't have a corresponding issue and convert them to issues later. For more information, see Informationen zu Aufgabenlisten.

Screenshot of the new issue form, with the title and body filled in. The body includes the Markdown for a task list.

Assigning the issue

To communicate responsibility, you can assign the issue to a member of your organization. See Issues und Pull Requests anderen GitHub-Benutzern zuweisen.

Screenshot of the new issue form. In the right sidebar, the "Assignees" section is outlined in a dark orange.

Adding labels

Add a label to categorize your issue. For example, you might use a question label and a good first issue label to indicate that an issue is a question that a first-time contributor could pick up. Users can filter issues by label to find all issues that have a specific label.

You can use the default labels, or you can create a new label. For more information, see Verwalten von Bezeichnungen.

Screenshot of the new issue form. In the right sidebar, the "Labels" section is outlined in dark orange.

Adding issue types

You can add an issue type to classify work across the organization. See Managing issue types in an organization.

Screenshot of the new issue form. In the right sidebar, the "Type" section is outlined in dark orange.

Adding the issue to a project

You can add the issue to an existing project and populate metadata for the project. For more information about projects, see Informationen zu Projects.

Screenshot of the new issue form. In the right sidebar, the "Projects" section is outlined in dark orange.

Adding milestones

You can add a milestone to track the issue as part of a date based target. A milestone shows the progress of the issues as the target date approaches. See Informationen zu Meilensteinen.

Screenshot of the new issue form. In the right sidebar, the "Milestone" section is outlined in dark orange.

Submitting your issue

Click Submit new issue to create your issue. You can edit any of the above fields after creating the issue. Your issue has a unique URL that you can share with team members, or reference in other issues or pull requests.

Adding sub-issues

Sie können einem Problem Unterprobleme hinzufügen, um größere Arbeitspakete schnell in Aufgaben aufzuteilen. Unterprobleme unterstützen Hierarchien von Problemen auf GitHub, indem Beziehungen zwischen Ihren Problemen hergestellt werden. Sie können mehrere Ebenen von Unterproblemen erstellen, die Ihr Projekt genau darstellen, indem Sie die Aufgaben genau so detailliert aufschlüsseln, wie Sie und Ihr Team es benötigen. See Hinzufügen neuer Unterprobleme and Browsen von Unterproblemen.

Screenshot of the sub-issues section below the issue description. The "View more sub-issue options" button is highlighted with an orange rectangle.

Adding issue dependencies

You can define blocking relationships between issues using issue dependencies. Issue dependencies let you identify issues that are blocked by, or blocking, other work. See Creating issue dependencies.

Communicating

After your issue is created, continue the conversation by adding comments to the issue. You can @mention collaborators or teams to draw their attention to a comment. To link related issues in the same repository, you can type # followed by part of the issue title and then clicking the issue that you want to link. For more information, see Schreiben auf GitHub.

Screenshot of an issue comment. The header says "octocat commented now" and the body says "@hubot Do we also need to update the rocket logic?"

Next steps

You can use issues for a wide range of purposes. For example:

  • Tracking ideas
  • Collecting feedback
  • Planning tasks
  • Reporting bugs

To break your issue down into more manageable tasks, you can add multiple levels of sub-issues. See Hinzufügen neuer Unterprobleme.

Here are some helpful resources for taking your next steps with GitHub Issues: