DocsGitHub Projects v2 Support Report: Empty Project Items

GitHub Projects v2 Support Report: Empty Project Items

GitHub Projects v2 Support Report: Empty Project Items

Short version:

GitHub Projects v2 is inconsistent for the life-itself org. Issues can be added to projects and then show projectItems on the issue side, but the corresponding project still reports items.totalCount = 0, gh project item-list returns [], and the board UI remains empty. This reproduces on both existing project #34 and a fresh test project #35, so it appears to be a GitHub-side Projects bug rather than a problem with one issue or one project.

Full report

Subject

GitHub Projects v2 inconsistency: issue projectItems exists, but project items stays empty

Body

Hello GitHub Support,

We're seeing a reproducible inconsistency in GitHub Projects v2 for the life-itself organization.

Summary

Issues can be added to an organization project successfully, and the issue then shows a projectItems entry for that project. However, the project itself still reports zero items and the board remains empty.

This reproduces on both:

  • an existing org project: life-itself project #34 (Life Itself Team)
  • a brand-new org project created for testing: life-itself project #35 (Life Itself Team Recreated 2026-04-20)

Affected resources

  • Org project 34: https://github.com/orgs/life-itself/projects/34
  • Org project 35: https://github.com/orgs/life-itself/projects/35
  • Example issue: https://github.com/life-itself/strategy/issues/24

Expected behavior

When an issue is added to a Project v2:

  • the issue should show the project under projectItems
  • the project should include the item in items
  • items.totalCount should increment
  • the board/table UI should show the issue

Actual behavior

After adding the issue to the project:

  • the issue shows the project under projectItems
  • GraphQL returns a real ProjectV2Item node attached to the issue
  • but the project still reports items.totalCount = 0
  • gh project item-list returns an empty list
  • the board UI shows no issues

Reproduction

  1. Add an issue to an org project. Example:

    • issue: life-itself/strategy#24
    • project: org project #35

  2. Query the issue side:

query {
  repository(owner: "life-itself", name: "strategy") {
    issue(number: 24) {
      projectItems(first: 20) {
        nodes {
          id
          isArchived
          project {
            number
            title
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Result:

  • returns a ProjectV2Item for project 35
  1. Query the project side:
query {
  organization(login: "life-itself") {
    projectV2(number: 35) {
      id
      title
      items(first: 20) {
        totalCount
        nodes {
          id
          isArchived
          type
          content {
            __typename
            ... on Issue {
              number
              title
              repository {
                nameWithOwner
              }
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Result:

  • items.totalCount is 0
  • nodes is []
  1. CLI also confirms empty project:
gh project item-list 35 --owner life-itself --format json

Result:

  • {"items":[],"totalCount":0}

Additional findings

  • Removing and re-adding life-itself/strategy#24 to project 34 did not resolve the problem.
  • Creating a fresh test issue and adding it to project 34 reproduced the same behavior.
  • Creating a brand-new project #35 and adding #24 also reproduced the same behavior.
  • This suggests the issue is not specific to one item and not limited to one existing project.

Why we believe this is a GitHub-side Projects bug

The GraphQL docs indicate:

  • ProjectV2.items is the list of items in a project
  • Issue.projectItems is the issue-side project linkage

In our case those two sources of truth disagree for the same item.

Relevant references

Request

Can you investigate the backing data/index state for org life-itself Projects v2, specifically projects 34 and 35, where issue-side project item links exist but project-side item listings remain empty?

If useful, I can also provide:

  • exact GraphQL raw responses
  • exact gh command outputs
  • timestamps of the add/remove operations
  • item ids returned on the issue side

Thanks.

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