Priorities — Focus on What Matters Most
Not everything is equally important. Lifecycle's 6-level priority system gives your team a shared language for what to work on next — from critical production fires down to low-urgency backlog items that can wait for a quiet sprint.
The 6 Priority Levels
Priorities are ordered from most to least urgent. Each has a distinct color so you can scan a list and immediately identify where attention is needed.
1. Urgent
Drop everything. Critical production issues, security vulnerabilities, data loss scenarios. Urgent items demand immediate attention regardless of what else is in the sprint.
Use sparingly. If everything is urgent, nothing is.
2. Very High
Address within the current sprint. Major blockers, high-impact bugs affecting many users, features with hard external deadlines. These items should be at the top of the active sprint.
3. High
Important work that needs attention soon. Features on the roadmap, customer-impacting improvements, bugs with workarounds. These belong in the next 1-2 sprints.
4. Mid
The default priority. Standard work items, planned features, routine improvements. Most items in your backlog will be Mid priority — that's by design. Not everything needs to be elevated.
Tip: Resist the temptation to set everything to High. When a team marks 80% of their backlog as High, priority loses its meaning. Reserve High and above for items where the consequence of not doing them soon is concrete and costly.
5. Low
Can wait. Nice-to-haves, minor UX improvements, technical debt that isn't causing current pain. These items are acknowledged and tracked, but they yield to higher-priority work.
6. Very Low
Backlog. Ideas and items to address when capacity allows. No current sprint pressure. These items often live in the backlog for months and that's fine — they're there when you need them.
Priority Colors
Each priority has a distinct color for quick visual identification across all views:
| Priority | Visual |
|---|---|
| Urgent | Red |
| Very High | Orange-red |
| High | Orange |
| Mid | Yellow |
| Low | Blue |
| Very Low | Gray |
Setting Priority
On a Single Item
- Inline: Click the priority badge in any table row to open the priority picker
- Detail panel: Click the priority field in the item's detail panel
- Creation: Set priority during item creation in the creation panel
In Bulk
Select multiple items using checkboxes in the table view, then use the bulk action bar → Update Priority. Every selected item is updated in one action.
Tip: After sprint planning, use bulk priority update to align priorities across the sprint's items. Select all tasks in a story and set them to match the story's priority.
Priority Inheritance
Priority is set at the story level and conceptually inherited by tasks. Teams align task priority with their parent story — if the story is Urgent, the tasks beneath it should reflect that urgency.
This isn't enforced automatically — your team decides the convention. Some teams set task priority independently. The key is that everyone on the team knows how you use it.
Filtering and Sorting by Priority
Filtering
Use the Priority filter in any view to show only items at a specific priority level or above. Common filter patterns:
- Show all Urgent and Very High items across all sprints — your escalation view
- Show only Urgent items — for a daily check on critical issues
- Show all items except Very Low — to hide indefinite backlog items from active views
Sorting
Sort any view by priority to see the most important items at the top. Combine with sprint filter for a prioritized view of the current sprint.
Grouping by Priority
Group any view by Priority to see a priority-based breakdown of your board. Each priority level becomes a collapsible section showing all items at that level.
This view is useful for:
- Sprint planning — see how much work is at each priority level
- Backlog grooming — quickly identify and promote or deprioritize items
- Leadership reviews — demonstrate what the team is prioritizing
Priority in Automations
Priority changes can trigger automations:
- When priority changes to Urgent → notify the on-call engineer
- When priority changes to Very High → add to the current sprint
- When an item stays High for more than 14 days without a sprint → notify the PM
Configure automations in Board Settings → Automations.
Priority Best Practices
Keep Urgent rare. Use it for genuine emergencies. If your Urgent list has 12 items in it, the label has lost its power.
Review Low and Very Low quarterly. Items sitting at low priority for 3+ months either deserve to be promoted (the need became more important) or deleted (the need went away).
Don't use priority as a placeholder. It's tempting to mark everything High when you're not sure. Leave it at Mid and revisit during refinement with the full team.
Communicate priority changes. When you reprioritize an item, leave a comment explaining why. The activity log shows the change, but the comment provides the context.
Customizing Priorities
The six priority levels are built-in defaults. You can configure which priorities are available on each board.
How to customize: Open your board → click the gear icon → Fields tab. Priority configuration lets you control which levels are active for your board.
Tip: Even if you don't need all six levels, keeping the full set available gives your team more granularity for triage. Most teams use 3–4 levels day-to-day and reserve Urgent for true emergencies.