Advanced Search for Issues Public Preview

[github-staff]

Feedback wanted

Thank you for participating in the advanced search for issues public preview. Please leave your feedback below on what is working well, any bugs you encounter, and what else you’d like to see!

To provide your feedback on other experiences released at the same time, please visit:

• Evolving GitHub Issues - Public Preview #148713
• Sub-issues Public Preview #148714
• Issue Types Public Preview #148715

Writing advanced searches

From the repository Issues page, you can now build advanced queries using the AND and OR keywords, as well as nested queries using parentheses up to 5 layers deep. Here is the existing search syntax documentation for reference.

This search allows you to find issues that are either bugs or have high priority.

is:issue AND ( type:Bug OR label:priority-high )

This search allows you to find issues that were created in the last week that are either bugs or tasks, or medium priority ones you've authored.

is:issue AND created:>@today-1w AND (( type:Bug OR type:Task ) OR ( author:@me AND label:priority-medium ))

Things to note

• Advanced search is not yet available in the API, but only through the UI from the repository issues page. We are working on providing this support.
• The repo, org, and user fields currently function as OR filters when a space is included between them, rather than an AND search as it works for other fields. These fields are not yet supported in nested queries.

Closing Discussion Notice

As we've shipped the GA for Issues today, we are closing this discussion. Please direct all Issues and Projects feedback in the Evolving GitHub Issues and Projects (GA) discussion. Thank you!

[eamodio]

When will this be coming to Projects?

[eamodio]

Hopefully it won't be too long, been dying to use the AND/OR support in Projects.

[jason-capsule42]

@rileybroughten I just looked at the public roadmap and I wasn't able to find a ticket that referenced project level advanced search. Can you point us to the exact ticket for us to follow?

[rileybroughten]

We don't have a public roadmap item for this yet but I'll be sure to share it once we have more details on when advanced searching in Projects will be supported.

[ColinKerr]

I would also like this functionality on Projects, it would help us build better views.

[tomjrob]

Hi, with the deprecation of sub-tasks in favour of sub-issues (great, love this) plus the removal as part of that update of filtering within the slicers for project boards, this kind of advanced filtering has become quite important to us.

We used to slice the board by parent-task, and filter those down to issues which had "STORY" in their name AND were open. So our slicer was only showing open stores and the board was only showing the tasks within those stories. This creates a great workflow which allows prioritising the stories, then also prioritising the engineering tasks within those stories in the day-to-day. This workflow is now broken for us, and there isn't really a workaround.

Advanced filtering in projects would probably fix this, along with the new slicer on parent-issue.

It'd be great to get an idea of when this might be released so we can make good planning decisions now regarding our board structure i.e. do we make some big changes to how we structure things, or wait for this feature to become available.

It'd be much appreciated by our team if guidance on when we can expect to see this in projects could be prioritised. Even just a ballpark would be extremely helpful, e.g. a few months, a year, longer than a year.

[paulfenney]

Is there (or will there be) a way to use nested queries to filter based on properties of related issues?

For example if I want to search for "open sub-issues where the parent issue is assigned to me".

Or "issues which have a sub-issue with the blocked label".

[rileybroughten]

Thank you for providing this feedback! Currently there is not a way to search through the issue hierarchy and perform hierarchical searches through both the parent issues and sub-issues. I'll note this request and share it with the team 👍

[Vipitis]

would it be possible to set the default search/sort? I prefer sort:updated-desc to see all issues and PRs at once. With the changes to the advanced search that now takes even longer...

Also: the "clear filter" button doesn't clear - it reverts to the default is:issue state:open so this adds even more interaction before I get to my preferred query. Especially awful on mobile

[rileybroughten]

Thank for for these notes!

As for the default search filter, we don't currently have plans to change the default sort or allow you to customize it, but will keep this feedback in mind in case that changes. Noted on the feedback for the clear filter action as well, as it currently brings you back to default filter rather than clearing out all of the input.

[simon-abbott]

This is really nice so far, but I have small request: could you add a trailing space after the default search query? The majority of the time that I go to search the issues I want to add to the default search, but if I just select the box and start typing it gets attached to the state:open query and breaking both it and my actual search. Multiple times now I've started searching then had to stop, go back, and add a space.

[rileybroughten]

I am not able to reproduce this on my end as I am given an extra space when clicking into the filter bar. Let me know if there are any other details that can help us look into this, such as how you are navigating to the filter bar on a page and whether this happens all of the time across all of your repositories.

[simon-abbott]

Ah, I think it might be due to me clicking "too soon". If I wait until the page fully stabilizes then there is an extra space, but if I click as soon as the bar appears then once it finishes loading my cursor is just before the space.

[simon-abbott]

For the record, I would still like something to change so that I can click when the bar appears, rather than needing to wait for the page to finish loading (which can take several seconds).

[Tihana08]

Feedback wanted

Thank you for participating in the advanced search for issues public preview. Please leave your feedback below on what is working well, any bugs you encounter, and what else you’d like to see!

To provide your feedback on other experiences released at the same time, please visit:

• Evolving GitHub Issues - Public Preview #148713
• Sub-issues Public Preview #148714
• Issue Types Public Preview #148715

Writing advanced searches

From the repository Issues page, you can now build advanced queries using the AND and OR keywords, as well as nested queries using parentheses up to 5 layers deep. Here is the existing search syntax documentation for reference.

This search allows you to find issues that are either bugs or have high priority.

is:issue AND ( type:Bug OR label:priority-high )

This search allows you to find issues that were created in the last week that are either bugs or tasks, or medium priority ones you've authored.

is:issue AND created:>@today-1w AND (( type:Bug OR type:Task ) OR ( author:@me AND label:priority-medium ))

Things to note

• Advanced search is not yet available in the API, but only through the UI from the repository issues page. We are working on providing this support.
• The repo, org, and user fields currently function as OR filters when a space is included between them, rather than an AND search as it works for other fields. These fields are not yet supported in nested queries.

Looking for feedback

Please leave your feedback below 👇 on what is working well, what can be improved, and what else you’d like to see!

[psss]

I've ran into a bug when adding and removing label filter. Here are steps to reproduce:

Search for issues, for example:

• https://github.com/teemtee/tmt/issues?q=is%3Aopen

Choose a label to filter only must have issues:

• https://github.com/teemtee/tmt/issues?q=is%3Aopen%20label%3A%22priority%20%7C%20must%22

Remove the label filter by clicking in the label menu:

• https://github.com/teemtee/tmt/issues?q=is%3Aopen%20%7C

No issues are shown and an extra | is included at the end of the search expression.

[rileybroughten]

Thank you for reporting this! I can reproduce it on my end so will pass it along to the team to investigate 👍

[rileybroughten]

We've just pushed a fix for this 🚀 Let me know if you encounter any issues moving forward. Thank you again for raising this!

[psss]

Yeah, now works fine. Thanks for the fix!

[sl1msa1d]

Is it possible to set the default type in the repo ? For example, for the bug template in here .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.md ? If yes, how ?

[rileybroughten]

Are you curious about whether you can specify the default issue type in your templates? If so, you can use the type field in your issue forms and templates, documentation is found here. Let me know if that answers your question!

[sl1msa1d]

Yes. It worked. Thank you very much !

[Phil-DS]

Posted this in #148713, but looks like this is the better place:

Found a bug: If I use a URL to go to an issue search URL formatted like https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>/issues/assigned/<assignee>, then removed the assigned filter, it still only shows the assignee's assigned issues. Works in the old version. Problem seems to be that it doesn't remove the /assigned/<assignee> part of the url before adding the query string, and then seems to ignore the query string

[rileybroughten]

Thanks for reporting this! I can reproduce it so will pass it along to the team 👍

[rileybroughten]

We pushed a fix for this - let me know if you have any issues!

[Avasam]

"Ascending" search by reactions is incorrectly marked as an invalid filter
For example: https://github.com/opencv/opencv/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20is%3Aopen%20involves%3AAvasam%20sort%3Areactions-%2B1-asc

Descending (and default) are correctly marked as valid:

[rileybroughten]

Thank you for reporting this! I can reproduce this so I've passed this along to the team and will keep you posted with any updates on our end.

[rileybroughten]

This has been fixed! Let us know if you're still encountering this issue 👍

[daisukes]

Hello, I generally like the UI but want to share an issue with my environment.
I use a Japanese input method and cannot input the Japanese text directory in the search field.

The gif shows that I am trying to input "こんにちは"

The following discussion is about a similar issue with mobile app.

• https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/149408

Thanks

[rileybroughten]

Thank you for reporting this! @daisukes could you share more about the browser and operating system so our team can investigate further?

[daisukes]

Yes. This has happened with Firefox/Ubuntu20.04 so far. Firefox is 134.0.

• X Firefox/Ubuntu20.04/Japanese IME: Mozc
• O Google Chrome/Ubuntu20.04/Japanese IME: Mozc
• O Firefox/macOS15.2
• O Google Chrome/macOS15.2
• O Safari/macOS15.2

[rileybroughten]

Thank you! I've passed this along to the team to investigate.

[L-Clouds]

Excluding a quoted string from an issue search appears to have broken today. Yesterday, a search such as is:issue is:open NOT "code" would get results, but today, it gets 0. In contrast, is:issue is:open NOT code functions, but of course that can't be used to exclude specific multi-word phrases.

[rileybroughten]

Thank you for reporting this. I can reproduce it on my end so I've passed this along to the team to investigate and will provide updates!

[L-Clouds]

This appears to have been fixed today.

[rileybroughten]

Yes we just pushed a fix today! Let us know if you encounter any other issues 👍

[mxstbr]

👋 Hey folks, I'm trying to search for merged PRs across two organizations by doing org:org-1 OR org:org-2 is:pr, but it's not working, neither in the GitHub global search bar UI nor the API. (I actually need it in the UI)

Is this advanced search limited to just issues specifically? Or is the OR operator not implemented for org:? What's the limitation here, and when can I expect it to be resolved?

[rileybroughten]

We recently added support for advanced searching to the issues dashboard at github.com/issues, check out the changelog.

You can use a query like this: is:pr AND (org:A OR org:B)

[101100]

Advanced search is not yet available in the API, but only through the UI from the repository issues page. We are working on providing this support.

If this is not in the API, what is the repalcement for Search issues and pull requests which is listed as deprecated?

[rileybroughten]

Check out the changelog which details the recently released API support, but on Sept 4, 2025 all issues queries will use advanced search by default. For now you can utilize the optional parameter / type to utilize advanced search.

[rileybroughten]

We released support for issues advanced search in GraphQL and the REST API 🚀 Check out the changelog and let us know your feedback!

[VaZark]

This is peripherally related to the sub-issues. Are there plans to introduce a filter to view only parent issues?

[VaZark]

Nvm, I found it : no:parent-issue or has:sub-issue

[VaZark]

Maybe the new defaut should be is:issue state:open no:parent-issue ?

[gryznar]

1. Unfortunately, this change introduces noticeable lag in loading - visible the most on counter labels (they need few seconds to load) Without this, site is loaded almost instantly.
2. I also don't like, that document returned via https://github.com/owner/repoName/issues?q=query:
   
   is only partially rendered. Previously whole site was returned (without styling):

Previously

(as you may see - 25 entries)

Now

Only 12 entries is returned and a lot of stuff is not loaded:

Previous state was very handy for e.g. fetching data. Current one is not usable (page is broken). Could it be adjusted to behave the same way as previously (loading whole content at once and then applying styling)?

[legobeat]

Similarly reported on the meta-thread with response from maintainer: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/148713#discussioncomment-12532258

[PatrickHeneise]

I use the generic "Issues" list a lot to filter / search / browse, and it's showing labels, but not the issue type:

https://github.com/issues

Would be great to add the types here (ie bug/enhancement/task/...)

[rileybroughten]

This is coming soon! 😁

[rileybroughten]

Check out the changelog!

[PatrickHeneise]

Awesome, thanks!

[amenity]

It would be super helpful to have an easy way to filter by open/close/update dates. I always have to look up syntax or edit previously made links.

[tuves]

As we've shipped the GA for Issues today, we are closing this discussion. Please direct all Issues and Projects feedback in the Evolving GitHub Issues and Projects (GA) discussion. Thank you!