Creating and Editing Work Items

Getting work into Lifecycle is fast by design. Whether you're capturing a quick task mid-standup or fleshing out a fully detailed story with assignees, estimates, and a rich description, the creation flow stays out of your way.

Creating Work Items

From the Board View

Click the "+" button in any group header row to create a new item directly in that group. The item is pre-filled with the group's value — creating an item in the "High Priority" group sets priority to High automatically.

From the Command Palette

Press Cmd+P (Mac) or Ctrl+P (Windows/Linux), type "Create", and select the item type. The creation panel opens with the board and level pre-selected.

The Creation Panel

The creation panel slides in from the right. It contains all fields relevant to the item's level and board type.

Always available:

  • Title — the only required field. Keep it actionable: "Add OAuth login for Google" beats "Login stuff".
  • Description — rich text with markdown support. Document the why, the acceptance criteria, edge cases.
  • Status — defaults to the board's first active status (usually "Todo")
  • Priority — defaults to "Mid"

R&D Story / Bug:

  • Assignees (multi-select)
  • Design status
  • Epic (custom field)
  • Product, Team, Category (custom fields)
  • Pipeline stage

R&D Task:

  • Assignees and QA assignees (multi-select)
  • Sprint
  • Stage (Predev / Dev / Production)
  • Estimated hours and QA estimated hours
  • All applicable custom fields

Feature Request:

  • Requestor / source
  • Linked R&D story
  • Product, customer segment custom fields

Tip: You don't need to fill everything in at creation time. Capture the title and essential context, then flesh out estimates and assignees during refinement. The detail panel is always one click away.

Default Values

Board admins can configure default values per field per level. When a new item is created, it auto-fills with those defaults.

Common defaults to configure:

  • Default priority for new stories (e.g., "Mid")
  • Default status for new tasks (e.g., "Todo")
  • Default sprint for new items (e.g., the current active sprint)
  • Default assignee for a particular board or project

Set defaults in Board Settings → Defaults.

Duplicate Detection (Feature Requests)

When creating a Feature Request, Lifecycle's AI automatically scans for similar existing requests. If a match is found, you'll see a suggestion to link to or merge with the existing item instead of creating a duplicate.

This keeps your Feature Requests board clean and ensures votes and comments don't get split across duplicate items.

Creating Child Items

To add tasks to a story, or sub-tasks to a task:

  1. Open the parent item's detail panel
  2. Scroll to the Children section
  3. Click "+" to create a new child item inline

The child item inherits the parent's sprint (for sub-tasks), board, and org context. You can also drag existing items into a parent to reparent them.

Editing Work Items

Inline Editing

Click any cell in the table view to edit it in place. This works for:

  • Title
  • Status
  • Priority
  • Assignee
  • Sprint
  • Estimated hours
  • Any custom field

Press Enter or click outside to save. Press Escape to cancel.

Detail Panel Editing

Click an item's title (or use the keyboard shortcut O) to open the full detail panel. The detail panel gives you:

  • All fields with more editing space
  • Rich text description editor with full markdown support (headers, code blocks, lists, inline code, links)
  • Tabs: Info, Updates (comments and thread), Time Logs, Activity
  • Dependency management
  • Linked items

Changes save automatically as you type.

The Detail Panel Tabs

Info

All fields for the item. Edit anything here. Fields are grouped logically — core fields at the top, then planning fields, then custom fields.

Updates

Threaded comments. Mention teammates with @username to notify them. Supports markdown formatting. Great for async discussion, decision logs, and context that shouldn't get lost in Slack.

Tip: Use the Updates tab as a decision log. When the team debates an approach and reaches a conclusion, document it here. Future-you will thank present-you.

Time Logs

A log of all time entries against this item. Team members can log time manually or via the timer. Shows who logged what, when, and with what description.

Activity

A full audit trail of every change to the item: status changes, assignee changes, field edits, sprint moves. With timestamps and the user who made each change.

Reordering Items

Drag and drop items to reorder them within a group. The position is saved and persists across sessions. Use position to manually prioritize items within the same status or sprint group.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action Shortcut
Open command palette Cmd+P / Ctrl+P
Open item detail O (with item selected)
Create item C
Close panel Escape
Move to next item J
Move to previous item K

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