Practical Life
Workbench
Naming Things So People Can Find Them Again
Naming conventions for projects, filters, dashboards, boards, and issue titles. Human readability over internal cleverness.
Names are search interfaces. Choose names that people can remember and type, not internal jokes or version codes.
Practical rules
Name it so it can be found
- Use the words people use when they ask for it.
- Front load the differentiator, do not bury it at the end.
- Prefer plain words over abbreviations.
“A good name pays rent every time someone searches.”
Patterns that travel
Consistent patterns
- Projects: Area Purpose, for example Website Marketing.
- Boards: Team Name Board, for example Core Team Board.
- Filters: Audience Verb Object, for example Leads See Open Bugs.
Renaming safely
Avoid breakage
- Search for inbound links and update them.
- Announce the rename with old and new names in one sentence.
- Keep the old name as an alias in the description for a week.