Introduction

GitHub Projects is a powerful tool for planning and tracking the progress of your projects directly on GitHub. It works like a kanban board integrated with your repository, where cards are directly linked to your Issues and Pull Requests.

Advantages of GitHub Projects

• Basic Performance Tracking: Lets you measure delivery performance in a simple way.
• Integration with Issues and Pull Requests: Cards are linked directly to your Issues and Pull Requests, making it easier to follow development.
• View of Changed Files: When you open a card, it’s easy to find the files changed for the implementation.
• Assignee: Cards are tied to the user responsible for the implementation.
• Custom Fields: You can create custom fields on cards for better organization.

Step-by-Step Guide

Creating a project

a. Open the “Projects” tab on your profile.

b. Select a starting template, choosing between Table or Board. We recommend the Board template for its card view.

So far it’s a board like in any other tool, and cards can be added by clicking Add item or with the shortcut command + space (Mac).

Creating custom fields

You can create fields to help with organization and with analyzing sprints and multiple projects. For my board, I created a field to say which project each card belongs to.

a. Open the project settings.

b. Create a new field, such as “Project”, and its possible options, for better organization and analysis.

Going back to the board and selecting a card, this new field called Project shows up in the card settings.

It also shows up on the board with the project selected for the card.

Creating an issue

a. On the card you want, click the button to create an Issue and select the relevant repository.

Creating a Pull Request

a. On the card, use the shortcut to open an Issue.

b. On the Issue page, create or link a branch.

Since implementing this layout requires me to set up React Native first, I’ll split that into a start branch and create another one for the layout implementation.

After pushing the React Native setup, the Pull Request tab suggests creating a PR.

After you describe what you did and confirm, you’ll have a PR like this one.

Your card shows a link to the PR.

Automations

GitHub Projects offers automation options to streamline your workflow, such as automatically moving a card to the “Done” column when an Issue or Pull Request is closed.

Conclusion

This tutorial covered the basic features of GitHub Projects, an essential tool for managing projects efficiently on GitHub. Were you already using it? Share your tips in the comments!