Michael JohnsonAs of November 11, 2026, GitHub personal account owners can configure issue types and fields in repositories they own. The planning tools, previously described, are now generally available to individual developers and open-source maintainers. GitHub also supports managing types and fields through the REST API, GraphQL, and webhooks, the company announced.
What’s available in personal repositories
Account owners can configure up to 25 issue types. Bug, Task, and Feature are available by default; owners can modify or add types. They can also create up to 25 fields for issues, including priority, effort, start date, and target date. Supported field types include text, number, and date, as well as single and multiple select.
Fields can be restricted to specific issue types or made available for issues without a type. They can be set when creating an issue or edited later. In GitHub Projects, fields can be used for custom views and bulk updates.
Why this matters to maintainers
For a small project, issue types and fields offer a consistent way to describe work. For example, a maintainer can distinguish bugs, features, and general tasks, then assign each a priority or target date. In Projects, this information helps filter and group issues without moving planning out of GitHub Issues.
The change expands access to structured planning for individual developers and maintainers of repositories owned by personal accounts. Types and fields are configured in the settings for such an account; GitHub’s announcement does not promise that settings will sync automatically between different accounts or repositories.
What you can automate
GitHub says types and fields can be managed programmatically through the REST and GraphQL APIs and webhooks. The documentation describes operations involving fields, their values, and changes triggered by the issues event. This lets developers connect their own workflows—for example, responding to a change in a field value or setting it programmatically. Each integration must be implemented separately.
In the same update, GitHub added the option to create labels and milestones directly from an issue when the desired value is not in the list. This small improvement makes it easier to work with an issue; the main change is that configurable types and fields are now available for repositories owned by personal accounts.
For an individual project, the result is more structured Issues and the ability to process fields through APIs and webhooks. The benefits depend on which categories and data the maintainer chooses for their issues.
