This tutorial guides you through the steps on using GitLab issue boards to manage your tasks in a Kanban workflow. By setting up groups, projects, boards, and organizing issues, you can enhance transparency, collaboration, and delivery.
To use GitLab issue boards to manage your tasks in a Kanban workflow:
For other information, see Advanced tips and tricks at the bottom of this page.
Follow the corresponding steps to create your groups and projects
If your team is working across multiple repositories, create a project for each repository in your group.
Issues will canonically be in their respective projects, but your kanban board will be in your group so you can maintain visibility across all of your projects. If you are working in a single repository, you can skip this step.
Next, let’s create some labels to represent each step in your Kanban lifecycle:
If you are working across multiple projects, create the labels in your group Playbook Workflows. This lets you use a single set of labels across all of your projects.
In both scenarios, the process for creating labels is the same. Create scoped labels for status::to do, status::doing, and status::done.
After you’ve created your labels, the next step is to create a Kanban board:
On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group or project.
Select Plan > Issue Boards.
In the upper-left corner of the issue board, select the dropdown list with the current board name.
Select Create new board.
Enter the new board’s name and then select Create board.
Create a new label list by selecting + New list.
Set the list scope to Label and the value to status::to do.
Repeat the same label list creation flow to create two more label lists: status::doing and status::done.
Congrats, you now have a Kanban board. You can now create new issues in each list, drag and drop issues from one workflow step to another, and assign issues to team members.
Optionally, you can enable work in progress (WIP) limits for each label list on your board. To do so:
Select the Edit list settings gear icon in the top right of a label list.
Select Work in progress limit > Edit.
Enter the maximum number of issues allowed in the corresponding list, the press the Enter key.
Your list background will now automatically turn red when the limit is reached. A “work in progress limit” cut line will also be visible in the list to visually display all issues that are over the limit below the line.
To create policies that automatically update issues based on the specified conditions, set up gitlab-triage. For example, you can create a policy to automatically close issues when the status::done label is applied, or automatically add the status::to do label when an issue is created. The open source gitlab-triage gem is designed to work seamlessly with GitLab pipelines.
To make creating different types of issues more efficient and standardized, create description templates.
To visualize the load on each team member in your group or project, create an additional issue board with assignee lists.
Create a scoped label set for T-shirt sizing issues. For example, size::small, size::medium, and size::large.