Manually creating a single issue template for your repository

When you add a manually-created issue template to your repository, project contributors will automatically see the template's contents in the issue body.

In this article

This is the legacy workflow to create an issue template. We recommend using the upgraded multiple issue template builder or issue forms to create issue templates. For more information, see "About issue and pull request templates."

You can create an ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ subdirectory in any of the supported folders to contain multiple issue templates, and use the template query parameter to specify the template that will fill the issue body. For more information, see "Creating an issue."

You can add YAML frontmatter to each issue template to pre-fill the issue title, automatically add labels and assignees, and give the template a name and description that will be shown in the template chooser that people see when creating a new issue in your repository.

Here is example YAML front matter.

---
name: Tracking issue
about: Use this template for tracking new features.
title: "[DATE]: [FEATURE NAME]"
labels: tracking issue, needs triage
assignees: octocat
---

Note: If a front matter value includes a YAML-reserved character such as : , you must put the whole value in quotes. For example, ":bug: Bug" or ":new: triage needed, :bug: bug".

You can create default issue templates and a default configuration file for issue templates for your organization or personal account. For more information, see "Creating a default community health file."

Adding an issue template

  1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

  2. Above the list of files, using the Add file drop-down, click Create new file.

  3. In the file name field:

    • To make your issue template visible in the repository's root directory, type the name of your issue_template. For example, issue_template.md.
    • To make your issue template visible in the repository's docs directory, type docs/ followed by the name of your issue_template. For example, docs/issue_template.md,
    • To store your file in a hidden directory, type .github/ followed by the name of your issue_template. For example, .github/issue_template.md.
    • To create multiple issue templates and use the template query parameter to specify a template to fill the issue body, type .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/, then the name of your issue template. For example, .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/issue_template.md. You can also store multiple issue templates in an ISSUE_TEMPLATE subdirectory within the root or docs/ directories. For more information, see "Creating an issue."

  4. In the body of the new file, add your issue template. This could include:

    • YAML frontmatter
    • Expected behavior and actual behavior
    • Steps to reproduce the problem
    • Specifications like the version of the project, operating system, or hardware

  5. In the "Commit message" field, type a short, meaningful commit message that describes the change you made to the file. You can attribute the commit to more than one author in the commit message. For more information, see "Creating a commit with multiple authors."

  6. Below the commit message fields, decide whether to add your commit to the current branch or to a new branch. If your current branch is the default branch, you should choose to create a new branch for your commit and then create a pull request. For more information, see "Creating a pull request."

    Screenshot of a GitHub pull request showing a radio button to commit directly to the main branch or to create a new branch. New branch is selected.
    Templates are available to collaborators when they are merged into the repository's default branch.

  7. Click Commit changes or Propose changes.

Further reading