How to put a label on an issue in GitHub if you are not a contributor / owner?

Question

I've submitted an issue for a project on GitHub which is not mine and I'm not a contributor, but I cannot find a way to label my issue. Is there a way for me to label it, or is this only available for contributors?

Answer 1

GitHub issue templates labels (.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/XXX.md, December 2018)

Documentation: https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-issue-templates-for-your-repository

With this feature, repository admins can create a set of issue templates, and assign a set of labels to each template.

Then, whenever an user creates a new issue, even non admins, they can choose between one of the templates, and if they do, the labels get automatically assigned! Once assigned at creation, labels cannot be changed later on by the non-admins.

Here is a test repo of mine that you can freely create issues on to test it out: https://github.com/cirosantilli/test-git-web-interface/issues/new/choose Previously the URL was: just https://github.com/cirosantilli/test-git-web-interface/issues/new but now as of November 2023 you need the /choose subpath or else you go to the new issue creation directly without templates

This is how it looks like when the user is about to create an issue with a template:

The issue template feature is much older, but the labels were an update from December 2018 https://github.blog/changelog/2018-12-05-issue-template-automation-improvements/

I like this approach, because it effectively allows you to determine a subset of labels that anybody can create, while still potentially reserving other labels for collaborators only.

The templates can be created from GitHub's repo Settings tab, but even if you do it from there it just generates magic files under the .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE directory, see e.g.: https://github.com/cirosantilli/test-git-web-interface/tree/7f2bb195ff303a037499c1c349b3c89158221674/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE which is good as it keeps more repo metadata inside the repo.

The directory could contain something like:

.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug.md

---
name: bug
about: Use this template to report existing bugs.
title: 'Bug'
labels: bug

---

.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/feature-request.md

---
name: feature-request
about: Use this template to request new features.
title: 'Feature request'
labels: feature-request

---

Old answer

I have submitted this request to support@github.com and https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/148 and pointed to this question.

@jdennes replied with the usual neutral:

I've added a +1 to this item on our Feature Request List for consideration.

which confirms it is not possible.

Let's upvote this question to heavens until they do it!

Answer 2

It's only available for contributors.

This way, you can avoid random people assigning the wrong labels and messing up your categories.

It would however be useful if you could in some manner propose labels. Then you could mark an issue as what you think is a bug, so the owner can just confirm that. Many people suggest labels in the title: [proposed Label] actual title