Plan
Board and columns

Board and columns

This page explains a project’s board, so you can read it at a glance and move work across it with confidence. By the end you’ll know what each column does, which moves start or stop a worker, what a card is telling you, and how to narrow the board to the work you care about and keep that as a view.

Every project has one board. Its columns are the stages work goes through, and each ticket sits in exactly one of them (see Tickets and sub-tickets). You move cards by hand, and By Dawn moves them too as its workers start, ask questions and finish. Choose Board in the sidebar, or press ⌘1, to open it.

Columns and their roles

Teams rename and add columns, so By Dawn marks the few columns its workflow depends on with a role. The role stays with the column whatever it’s called, and the column header shows it as an icon. A new organization’s board starts with one column for each role:

Column	What its role means
Backlog	Where new tickets land when nobody chooses a column.
Planning	Work that’s planned but not started.
Running	Agents start here when a card lands. Moving a card into this column starts a worker on it.
Review	You review the agent’s output here. A worker’s card comes here when it finishes.
Completed	Finished work. Sub-ticket progress, epic progress and the Shipped this week view count a ticket as done once it’s here.

A column your team adds has no role. Cards move in and out of it like any other, but nothing starts there. Running and Review are anchored: you can rename them, but you can’t delete them, because By Dawn needs somewhere to run work and somewhere to hand it back.

Hover the icon on Running or Review to see what the column does. Hover a column’s header to reach two buttons:

Add to column (+) opens the create bar with that column already chosen.
Column options (⋯) changes how this column looks, for you only:
- Select all in column selects its cards for the bulk actions below.
- Card size: Match board, Comfortable or Compact.
- Sort by: Manual, Priority, Last updated, Created or Title, with a Direction.
- Group by: None, Priority, Epic, Assignee, Cycle or Release.
- Reset column puts it back. Edit columns… opens the organization’s column settings.

Move cards

Drag a card to another column. Dropping on Running shows Start agent before you let go, because that drop starts a worker. You can also move a ticket from its own view, with the status menu beside its ID.

To move several cards at once, tick the checkbox that appears when you hover a card, then drag any of the ticked cards. They all move together. While cards are selected, a bar at the bottom offers Move to cycle, Add to release, Archive, Delete and Clear. Move to cycle and Add to release show only when the project uses cycles or has releases.

A few moves do more than change the column:

Into Running: By Dawn checks that a machine can run the ticket first. If none can, the card stays where it was and By Dawn says why, under Can’t start this ticket.
Into the completed column: By Dawn stops the ticket’s worker, because there’s nothing left for it to do. If the worker can’t be stopped, By Dawn tells you so and the card stays in the completed column.
A card waiting on your answer: while a worker is stopped on a question or a permission prompt, its card can’t be dragged. Answer it first.

How By Dawn moves cards for you

You don’t have to move every card yourself. By Dawn moves them as the work goes:

A worker asks you something. While a worker is stopped on a question or a permission prompt, its card shows in Review, and By Dawn moves it there. Answer on the card or in the ticket.
A worker finishes. Its card moves to Review, where you look over what it did.
A run is stopped. A card still in Running goes back to the column it was in before the run started.
SAW is shipping it. When the only steps left in a ticket’s mission are By Dawn’s own, such as marking the pull request ready, approving it and merging it, the card waits in Running and its ticket says SAW is shipping it. By Dawn then moves it to the completed column itself. See Missions and templates.

What a card shows

A card leads with what needs your attention and keeps the small facts on one line at the bottom.

The epic, on a line of its own at the top, with the epic’s colour along the card’s left edge. Hover it for the epic’s progress, or click it to open the epic.
The title.
Blocked by, with the first open blocker’s ID (and +2 for two more), when another ticket holds this one back.
How it was resolved, when a ticket was closed without code: Duplicate of, Already fixed by or Won’t fix.
What’s happening now, which changes with the ticket’s state:
- A worker’s question, with its answers as buttons you can click on the card.
- No output for a while — still on track? when a worker goes quiet, with Peek and Nudge.
- A permission prompt, a sign-in the worker’s machine needs, or a pause on a usage limit.
- While a worker is running: what it’s doing now, and a bar of its acceptance checks, such as 4/9 checks.
- In Review: the pull requests, such as 1 PR open for review or 2 merged, and the checks.
The bottom line: the count of sub-tickets (1/3 subs, hover it for the list), the number of comments, the cycle, the estimate and linked GitHub issues when the project uses them, the ticket’s ID, and the assignee. An unassigned ticket shows an empty circle.

The light around a card is its status: it runs while a worker is live and turns warm when the card is waiting on you.

Compact cards fit more on the screen. Each is one or two lines, the light moves to a thin strip down the left edge, and the assignee and sub-tickets show when you hover.

Sub-tickets don’t get cards of their own. They’re counted on their parent’s card, which keeps a broken-down ticket from filling a column.

Change the layout

The tools at the top of the board change how it’s drawn:

Board or List: columns side by side, or one list grouped by column.
Display: the Density of every card, Comfortable or Compact. ⌘⇧D switches between them.
Group (inside Display when the tools sit in the top bar): group the cards Inside each column by Priority, Assignee, Epic, Cycle or Release. Tickets without that field get their own group, such as No epic or Unassigned. Under Across the columns, Epic lanes gives each epic its own row of columns. ⌘G turns epic lanes on and off.

Search and filter

The search field at the top of the app is the board’s search. It names the view you’re on and says Search or filter this view · jump anywhere.

Type to narrow the board to tickets that mention your words. By Dawn searches the whole ticket, including its comments, plan, labels, epic and pull requests, not only what the card shows. If nothing matches, the board says No tickets match with your words, and Clear search brings everything back.
Filter with the list under Narrow by: Assignee, Status, Label, Epic, Cycle, Release, Repo, Priority, State, Created and Updated. Some only appear when the project uses them, and Has Intercom link only when your plan includes Intercom. As you type, Filter this view suggests filters your words could become. Tab adds the first.
Each filter becomes a chip in the field. Click a chip to change it, or press Backspace in an empty field to remove the last one.

State filters by what’s happening on a card: Needs input, Stalled, Running, Paused, Blocked, Stuck or Ready to ship.

The same list also offers matching tickets to open and pages to jump to. ⌘K opens the command palette instead, which searches tickets and Docs from anywhere in By Dawn.

Board views

A view is a saved set of filters and layout. The sidebar lists the views you’ve pinned under Board views, each with a live count, and All views lists every one the project has, with Find a view to search them.

By Dawn ships these views. You can’t change them, but you can save a copy and change that.

Group	View	What it shows
Board	All tickets	Every open ticket on the board
For you	Needs you	Questions, plan approvals and checkpoints waiting on you
For you	My tickets	Tickets assigned to you
For you	Waiting on my review	Your tickets in the review column
Workers	Running now	A worker is live on it
Workers	Stuck	Stalled or lost workers, failing checks, or a parked CI gate
Workers	Ready to ship	In review, every open PR green and mergeable
Planning	This cycle	Everything planned into the current cycle
Planning	Triage	Nobody has it yet
Planning	Blocked	Waiting on an open blocker
History	Shipped this week	Done in the last 7 days
History	Archived	Archived tickets, alongside the rest

Save a view

Open the view closest to what you want, then change the filters, search or layout. The board marks the view Edited, with Reset to undo your changes.
Choose Save view. On a view you saved yourself, the button says Update view instead, and its arrow offers Save as a new view.
Give it a Name and choose Who sees it: Only me, or everyone in the project.
Choose Save view.

Each view’s menu in the sidebar has Pin to the sidebar (or Unpin from the sidebar), Duplicate as a new view, and, on views you saved, Rename, Share with everyone or Make it private, and Delete view. Drag pinned views to reorder them. Your sidebar order is kept on your account, so it’s the same on every device.

Change the columns

Columns belong to the organization first. Every project’s board uses the organization’s columns, its template, until someone gives the project its own. Only workspace admins (org owners and admins) can change columns. Everyone else sees them read-only.

Settings, then Organization, then Board edits the template, which every project without its own columns follows.
Settings, then This project, then Board shows which columns this project uses. On the template, choose Customize for this project to copy the columns to the project and edit them there. A customized project stops following changes to the template, and Use the organization template again takes it back.

The same list of columns appears in both places. In it you can:

Add column. A board holds at most 12 columns, and a name is at most 60 characters.
Rename a column by clicking its name.
Reorder columns by dragging them, or with Move up and Move down in the column’s ⋯ menu.
Give a column a colour with Colour….
Click a column’s ticket count to open the board on that column.
Delete column.

Name new columns with care. A column called “In progress” or “Doing” won’t start anything, because only the column with Running’s role starts a worker. By Dawn warns you when a new column’s name sounds like it should.

Delete a column

Deleting a column never deletes its tickets. If the column holds tickets, or carries a role, By Dawn asks where they go first:

In the column’s ⋯ menu, choose Delete column.
Pick the column that takes its tickets. Running isn’t offered, because moving tickets there would start a worker for each one.
If the column has a role, the column you pick takes the role over. Taking over the backlog role means new tickets land there, for example.
Choose Move & delete (or Delete column for an empty column).

A bar then confirms what happened, with Undo. An empty column with no role is deleted straight away, and you can undo that too.

FAQ

I renamed a column to 'In progress'. Why don't workers start when I drop a card there?

Workers start only in the column with Running’s role, whatever it’s called. Rename that column instead (it’s Running on a new board), and keep your own columns for stages where nothing runs.

Why did a card jump to Review on its own?

Its worker either finished or stopped to ask you something. Open the card to see which: a question shows on the card itself, and a finished run shows its pull requests and checks.

Why can't I change the board's columns?

Only workspace admins can. If your project follows the organization’s template, an admin changes the columns in Settings, then Organization, then Board, or gives the project its own in Settings, then This project, then Board.

Does changing a column's sort or grouping change it for everyone?

No. The ⋯ options on a column, and the Group and Display tools, change the board for you only. To share a layout, save it as a view and choose to share it with everyone in the project.

Tickets and sub-tickets: what’s on a card when you open it.
Cycles: plan which cards the team takes on next.