Manage labels

Labels categorize tasks, plans, and Task Builder drafts. Create them at the organization scope when several projects should use the same definition, or at the project scope when the label belongs to one project.

Time: About 2 minutes per label.

• Create the organization and project that will own the label first.
• Organization owners and admins manage organization labels.
• Organization owners, organization admins, and project leads manage labels for an accessible project.
• Choose the label name, description, and color before creating it. A description is required, and the color uses a six-digit hex value such as #175CD3.

If you want a quick starting set, open the organization's Labels page and select Use default labels. Review the provided labels, keep the ones that suit your team, and select Apply default labels. The selected defaults become organization-owned labels, so every project can use them.

You can also skip the defaults and create your own labels one at a time. If you apply the default labels and later find that one does not fit, you can easily remove it from the organization's label list. Both paths use the same ownership, inheritance, and naming rules below.

1. Open Labels for the organization or project.
2. Select Create label.
3. Enter a name and description, then choose a color.
4. Select Create organization label or Create project label.

The new label appears in the label list. Edit or delete a label from its row. These actions are available only for labels owned by the current scope.

Organization-owned labels are available in every project in that organization. In a project, they appear as inherited labels and cannot be edited or deleted there; update them from the organization instead.

Project-owned labels are available only in that project. The project label page separates its own labels from inherited organization labels so you can see where each definition is maintained.

An exact label name cannot be reused across an organization and its relevant project. For example, if the organization has priority::high, a project in that organization cannot create another priority::high.

Use one :: separator to create a scoped label such as priority::high. The text before :: is the group, and the text after it is the value.

You can create several values in one group, such as priority::high and priority::low. A task, plan, or draft can have only one label from each scoped group at a time, so assigning priority::low replaces or prevents a conflicting priority::high assignment. Labels without :: do not use this exclusivity rule.

Task, plan, and draft editors use this same rule when you assign labels.

Use the description to explain when the label applies, and use a consistent color to make it recognizable in task lists. If a project needs a different meaning, create a differently named project-owned label instead of trying to change the inherited organization definition.

Next, see Manage members and roles.