Items in chat

Projects lives inside chat. Every item has its own thread, item keys in messages become live cards, and any message can become an item.

The item’s thread#

Each item has its own conversation in its Thread tab. It works like a chat thread: mentions, reactions, files, quotes, editing and deleting all work the same way, and you can comment offline.

An item’s thread stays out of the channel’s chat. It doesn’t show in your Threads list, and it doesn’t count toward the channel’s unread messages or mentions.
Commenting makes you a watcher of the item, so you hear about later replies. Mentioning someone in a comment notifies them.
Cards on the Board and rows in the List show a dot when an item has comments you haven’t read. Opening the item’s Thread tab marks them read on all your devices.

See Channels and threads for everything you can do in a thread.

To bring a comment to the whole channel’s attention, open the comment’s menu and choose Share to #channel. The comment is posted in the channel’s chat, labelled Forwarded from WEB-42 · Ada, with a link to the item. Sharing needs a connection.

To share the item itself, use Share to channel in the item’s actions menu. You can add a message to go with it.

Keys in messages#

Type an item’s key, such as WEB-42, or an initiative’s key, such as INIT-3, anywhere in a message. It becomes a link that opens the item.

When a message names one to three keys, a live card shows under it for each, with the title, status and assignee. Cards update as the item changes, and an overdue item says so. An initiative’s card shows its status, progress and target date.

Insert a key with `#`#

You don’t have to remember keys:

In a channel with a project, type # followed by a number or a few words, such as #42 or #login.
Anywhere, type a project key and a hyphen, such as WEB- or INIT-.

A list of matching items, then initiatives, appears. Press Enter or Tab to insert the full key. Press Esc or a space to keep what you typed as plain text.

Keys for items you can’t see#

An item in a public channel you aren’t in shows a card with its title and its channel, and Join. Join the channel to see the item; the card then becomes a live card.
An item in a private channel you aren’t in, and any key when you’re a guest, stays plain text. Nothing shows that the item exists.

Old keys#

When an item moves to another project or a project’s key is renamed, the item gets a new key. Old keys keep working: in messages, pages and descriptions, an old key leads to the item and shows its current key.

Create an item from a message#

Open a message’s menu and choose Create work item.
Check the form. It’s filled in for you: the channel’s project (or a choice of your projects, when the conversation has none), the message’s first line as the title, the project’s default type, and the message quoted in the description with a link back to it, such as “From a message by Ada in #web”.
Select Create.

A line under the original message then says WEB-42 was created from this message. Creating an item from a message needs a connection.

Keys in pages#

Item and initiative keys work in Pages too, as chips that open the item. The item’s Mentioned in section lists the pages and messages that mention it.