Milestones
A milestone is a point-in-time marker rather than a time-spanning bar. Use milestones for deadlines, launch dates, phase completions, board reviews, or any event that happens on a single date and has no duration.
Milestones render as diamond markers on the timeline, aligned with their row in the grid. They can be linked to tasks as dependency anchors — useful when a whole phase must finish before a launch date.
When to use a milestone vs a bar
Section titled “When to use a milestone vs a bar”- Use a bar when work has a duration (start and end).
- Use a milestone when the event is instantaneous (a deadline, a cutover, a signoff).
Milestones carry a single date. They have no progress, no duration, and do not consume resource capacity.
Create a milestone
Section titled “Create a milestone”- Add a new issue to the lens. You can use an existing Jira issue of any type, or create a new issue through the toolbar’s Create menu.
- In the Gantt, select the issue’s row.
- Open the row’s menu or use the toolbar’s Create Milestone option to convert the issue into a milestone marker.
- A diamond appears at the issue’s date on the timeline.
- If the issue has no date yet, the diamond anchors to today. Drag it to the correct date or edit the date field in the grid.
Move a milestone
Section titled “Move a milestone”- Drag the diamond left or right on the timeline to change its date.
- Or edit the date field directly in the grid — the diamond follows.
- Manual milestones (those you’ve pinned to a specific date) render with a subtle center ridge so they’re visually distinguishable from auto-scheduled ones.
Link milestones to work
Section titled “Link milestones to work”Milestones participate in dependencies like any other node. Drag from a task’s right edge to a milestone diamond to create a finish-to-start link, then the milestone shifts automatically if the upstream task slips.
Common patterns:
- Many tasks finishing into a single launch milestone.
- A milestone starting a new phase — everything downstream depends on the milestone.
Milestones and Jira
Section titled “Milestones and Jira”Jira has no native “milestone” concept, so milestones exist in the lens, not in Jira itself. When you use Copy to Jira to push Gantt dates back, the milestone’s date is written to whichever Jira date field you configured.
- Use one milestone per deliverable. Too many milestones make the timeline noisy.
- Place milestones at the tops of groups — they read as section markers that way.
- Name milestones as events, not tasks. “Launch v1.0” is clearer than “Ship it”.