Issue markdown template add to project does not work

[alex-schl]

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I am part of an organization myOrg (not real name) where I have admin privileges. There exists a project on organizational level called myProject which has id 14 and also have admin privileges.

In one of my repositories I have the following issue markdown template located in .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE:

---
name: Template Overview Item
about: description here
title: '*Descriptive Issue title*'
labels: 'priority: unknown'
type: 'Overview'
projects: ["myOrg/14"]
assignees: ''
---

some template stuff here

When creating an issue from this template labels, type work fine, but the issue does not get assigned to myOrg (I can do that manually tho).

What could be the problem here?

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• I have read the above statement and can confirm my post is relevant to the GitHub feature areas Issues and/or Projects.

[Farhxn-15]

Yeah, this can be confusing the first time you try it. Your template syntax looks correct, and the fact that labels and type are applied means the template is being read properly.

The part that is likely causing the issue is the projects field.

When you use:

projects: ["myOrg/14"]

GitHub only adds the issue to the project automatically if a few conditions are met.

First, the project must be a Projects (Beta) / Projects v2 board. Classic projects are not supported by the template automation.

Second, the repository must be allowed to add items to that organization level project. Even if you are an admin, the project itself must allow items from that repo.

You can verify this by opening the project → Settings → Access and confirming the repository is allowed.

Another common gotcha is permissions. The automation runs using repository permissions, not your personal admin rights. If the repo does not have permission to add items, it will silently fail.

Also double check that the project ID is correct. The number must match the project number shown in the project URL.

If everything looks correct and it still does not add automatically, try re selecting the repository in the project’s item source settings. Sometimes the connection is not fully established.

Since you can add it manually, that usually confirms it is a project access or project type limitation rather than a template syntax problem.