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Create an issue

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When you create an issue, you are prompted to enter the fields of the issue. If you know the values you want to assign to an issue, you can use quick actions to enter them.

You can create an issue in many ways in GitLab:

From a project

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Guest role for the project.

To create an issue:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.

  2. Either:

    • On the left sidebar, select Plan > Issues, and then, in the upper-right corner, select New issue.
    • On the left sidebar, at the top, select the plus sign ({plus}) and then, under In this project, select New issue.

  3. Complete the fields.

  4. Select Create issue.

The newly created issue opens.

From a group

Issues belong to projects, but when you're in a group, you can access and create issues that belong to the projects in the group.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Guest role for the project in the group.

To create an issue from a group:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Issues.
  3. In the upper-right corner, select Select project to create issue.
  4. Select the project you'd like to create an issue for. The button now reflects the selected project.
  5. Select New issue in <project name>.
  6. Complete the fields.
  7. Select Create issue.

The newly created issue opens.

The project you selected most recently becomes the default for your next visit. This can save you a lot of time, if you mostly create issues for the same project.

From another issue or incident

  • New issue becoming linked to the issue of origin introduced in GitLab 14.3.
  • Relate to checkbox introduced in GitLab 14.9.

You can create a new issue from an existing one. The two issues can then be marked as related.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Guest role for the project.

To create an issue from another issue:

  1. In an existing issue, select Issue actions ({ellipsis_v}).
  2. Select New related issue.
  3. Complete the fields. The new issue form has a Relate to issue #123 checkbox, where 123 is the ID of the issue of origin. If you keep this checkbox checked, the two issues become linked.
  4. Select Create issue.

The newly created issue opens.

From an issue board

You can create a new issue from an issue board.

Prerequisites:

  • You must have at least the Guest role for the project.

To create an issue from a project issue board:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Plan > Issue boards.
  3. At the top of a board list, select Create new issue ({plus-square}).
  4. Enter the issue's title.
  5. Select Create issue.

To create an issue from a group issue board:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Plan > Issue boards.
  3. At the top of a board list, select Create new issue ({plus-square}).
  4. Enter the issue's title.
  5. Under Projects, select the project in the group that the issue should belong to.
  6. Select Create issue.

The issue is created and shows up in the board list. It shares the list's characteristic, so, for example, if the list is scoped to a label Frontend, the new issue also has this label.

By sending an email

You can send an email to create an issue in a project on the project's Issues List page.

Prerequisites:

To email an issue to a project:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
  2. Select Plan > Issues.
  3. At the bottom of the page, select Email a new issue to this project.
  4. To copy the email address, select Copy ({copy-to-clipboard}).
  5. From your email client, send an email to this address. The subject is used as the title of the new issue, and the email body becomes the description. You can use Markdown and quick actions.

A new issue is created, with your user as the author. You can save this address as a contact in your email client to use it again.

WARNING: The email address you see is a private email address, generated just for you. Keep it to yourself, because anyone who knows it can create issues or merge requests as if they were you.

To regenerate the email address:

  1. On the issues list, select Email a new issue to this project.
  2. Select reset this token.

Using a URL with prefilled values

  • Ability to use both issuable_template and issue[description] in the same URL introduced in GitLab 14.9.
  • Ability to specify add_related_issue introduced in GitLab 14.9.

To link directly to the new issue page with prefilled fields, use query string parameters in a URL. You can embed a URL in an external HTML page to create issues with certain fields prefilled.

Field URL parameter Notes
Title issue[title] Must be URL-encoded.
Issue type issue[issue_type] Either incident or issue.
Description template issuable_template Must be URL-encoded.
Description issue[description] Must be URL-encoded. If used in combination with issuable_template or a default issue template, the issue[description] value is appended to the template.
Confidential issue[confidential] If true, the issue is marked as confidential.
Relate to… add_related_issue A numeric issue ID. If present, the issue form shows a Relate to checkbox to optionally link the new issue to the specified existing issue.

Adapt these examples to form your new issue URL with prefilled fields. To create an issue in the GitLab project:

  • With a prefilled title and description:

    https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/new?issue[title]=Whoa%2C%20we%27re%20half-way%20there&issue[description]=Whoa%2C%20livin%27%20in%20a%20URL

  • With a prefilled title and description template:

    https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/new?issue[title]=Validate%20new%20concept&issuable_template=Feature%20Proposal%20-%20basic

  • With a prefilled title, description, and marked as confidential:

    https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/new?issue[title]=Validate%20new%20concept&issue[description]=Research%20idea&issue[confidential]=true

Using Service Desk

To offer email support, enable Service Desk for your project.

Now, when your customer sends a new email, a new issue can be created in the appropriate project and followed up from there.

Fields in the new issue form

  • Adding the new issue to an epic introduced in GitLab 13.1.
  • Iteration field introduced in GitLab 15.6.

When you're creating a new issue, you can complete the following fields: