Documentation

How to run planning poker on GitHub Projects

Repoker runs planning poker against a GitHub Project you already have. Your team votes on a ticket, agrees on a number, and Repoker writes that number to a field on the board. There is no second backlog to keep in sync and nothing to copy across by hand.

Three short guides get you from nothing to a pointed sprint. Follow them in order the first time; each takes a couple of minutes, and only the first two need doing once per organization.

Before you start

A GitHub Project owned by an organization. GitHub doesn’t let apps read personal (user-owned) Projects, so a board under your own account won’t appear in Repoker. Moving it under an organization is the fix.
Permission to install a GitHub App on that organization, or an owner who can approve it for you.
The browser extension, optionally. Repoker works entirely in its own tab. The extension just puts a Point in Repoker button on GitHub issues so you never leave the ticket.

The guides

1Connect a repositoryInstall the Repoker GitHub App on the organization that owns your board. It needs read access to issues and metadata, and read and write access to organization projects. One-time setup per organization.2Create an estimate fieldAdd the Project field that agreed estimates land in. Text holds any card, including ? and ☕; Number keeps the column sortable on the board.3Point tickets from GitHubOpen an issue, deal a hand with your team, reveal, and write the number back to the board. With the browser extension you never leave GitHub.

What is planning poker?

Planning poker (also called scrum poker or pointing poker) is a way for a team to estimate work without anyone anchoring everyone else. Each person privately picks a card for how much effort a ticket takes, the cards turn over at the same moment, and the gap between the high and low card is the part worth talking about. The discussion is the point; the number is just what ends it.

Decks are usually Fibonacci (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13), T-shirt sizes, or something a team made up. Repoker ships all three and lets you set the deck per room.

If you’re still weighing up how to do this on a GitHub board at all, there’s a rundown of the options for planning poker in GitHub and what each one costs you.

Where the estimate goes

Most estimation tools stop at the number and leave you to transcribe it. Repoker writes the agreed estimate to the Project field you nominate, on the issue you were voting on, the moment the facilitator confirms it. Nothing else on the issue changes, and Repoker never reads your code — only issues, metadata, and the Project itself.

That keeps your GitHub board the single source of truth for what the work is worth, which is the whole reason the tool exists. If you’d rather read the longer version, there’s a post about why.

Repoker is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by GitHub, Inc. “GitHub” and the GitHub logo are trademarks of GitHub, Inc.