Create a new project

Creating a new project takes a matter of seconds. From Projects Home or your My Projects page click on the Create new project button. Fill in the form, taking particular care with the #Description. Acknowledge the Terms and Conditions of use, and last of all, select the Create Project button.

The fields are self-explanatory but there is an on-page guide (and we've included more information below) if you have any questions. Once you're done, see Growing a successful project for guidance on what to do next.

Project name

The name is displayed at the top of every page of your project and in Project Explorer. It should be something descriptive and meaningful to your users and project members. We recommend you keep it concise.

Project identifier

This uniquely identifies your project, providing the URL for your project and repository. It must be shorter than 32 characters and alphanumeric (no punctuation, accentented letters, currencies, etc). When used in an URL it is case sensitive.

We recommend you choose something simple, short, and easy to remember. Don't use version numbers or anything that might need to change as your project evolves.

Description

First impressions matter. The description is the first view that people have of your project - it is displayed in Project Explorer and at the top of your project home page summary.

The text should clearly and concisely describe what your project is and what you want to achieve. You do not need to say too much because you can use your wiki for all the details. On the other hand, do not be afraid to come back and refine this text later - it's probably the most important thing you can do to help promote your project.

Public project

Public projects are configured for growth and contribution - everything is visible to everyone, but only authenticated (logged in) users can create discussions and tickets, and only project members can submit to version control and edit or delete tickets and discussions. This is the default option, and we recommend you choose it unless there is a specific reason to prevent people seeing the details of your work.

Private projects are not visible by default, so administrators need to explicitly invite and add members.

These permissions can be changed at any time through the "General | Basic Settings" of your administration tab. You can also set finer grained permissions on what groups can do using the "Permissions | Groups" settings, as discussed in ProjectsGroupPermissions.

Advanced options

Version control

Specify the version control system for your project: Subversion, Git or Mercurial. If you are unsure which one to pick, Subversion is our default and should satisfy all your needs.

Notes:

• You can't change the version control system after creation! If necessary you can delete and recreate your project (losing any changes you've made).
• At time of writing the Clone button does not work - this is intended to allow you to copy the repository from an existing project.

I'm ready! Should I press the button?

Yes!

Having successfully created a project, you are automatically its owner and have all the permissions. The project will be empty - we recommend that you complete some of the other project details, including choosing a licence, editing the summary page etc. For the most important activities see Growing a successful project.