# Add an item without leaving the board

A request lands in the middle of a triage meeting and you want it on the board
now, not after a detour through the work item form. The first column has a
**New item** button: type a title, press Enter, and the card is there next to
"Quote commercial property without a surveyor visit" on the demo board for what
the business asked for.

## Before you start

Inline add is offered only on a live board in the **Board** view, under the
header of the **first** column. Three things remove it entirely: an **As of**
snapshot (read-only); swimlanes, because the button is rendered only on the
lane-less layout, so a board with lanes has no inline add at all; and showing
another level through the toolbar's **Level** selector, because the board's
query does not return items of that level, so a new one would disappear on the
next refresh (see [Board another level of the same
query](https://anykanban.com/docs/get-a-board/board-another-level-of-the-same-query/)). The item is
created as you, with your own permissions.

A board whose query matches nothing yet still offers it. The board draws the
columns it would draw with cards, says *"The query returned no items."* above
them, and the first column has **New item**, so the first bug on a new Bugs
board can be added right there. The three exclusions above still apply: a
board with swimlanes draws its columns without **New item**, and where its
lanes come from a field they sit in one **(no lane)** row, because such a lane
exists only once a card carries its value. A board with nothing to draw shows
the sentence alone: the ad-hoc **Board** tab over a query that matches
nothing, which has no work item type to read states from, and a board whose
lanes all hide while empty (**Show empty lanes** off).

## Steps

1. Open **AnyKanban** under **Boards**, open the board and stay on the
   **Board** tab.
2. Under the first column's header, select **New item**. The button is replaced
   by a focused title box reading **Title, then Enter**.
3. Type the title of the item.
4. Press **Enter**. To abandon instead, press **Escape**. Clicking somewhere
   else does not cancel the box.

## What you should see

The box collapses back into the **New item** button and a card with your title
appears in the first column, at the bottom of it. Where the board may write
ranks, the item is ranked one step past the largest rank on the board, so it
lands at the end rather than jumping the queue. On a board of backlog items,
AnyKanban leaves the backlog order alone unless rank writing is turned on for
that board, so the item is created with no rank, and an item without a rank
sorts last. A board whose type has no order field writes no rank either, and
neither does one whose query controls the order.

The item is created in the board's own project, as the board's work item type,
with no state of its own. Azure DevOps gives it the type's default state, which
is what puts it in the first column. Fields the backing query pins with a plain
equality condition are filled in for you, so the new item matches the query
where that can be guaranteed.

![The New item affordance on the first column](https://anykanban.com/docs/_img/inline-add-first-column.png)

## Notes

Not every query can be satisfied automatically: conditions using `OR`,
brackets, macros or anything other than a literal equality cannot be prefilled.
Adding an item brings the board's next refresh forward, and that refresh is
what checks whether the new id came back. If it did not, the card goes and an
info toast names it at the same moment: *"Item {id} was created but does not
match the board's query, so it will not appear here."* Note the id, open the
item and adjust it (or the query).

There is a second reason a new card can go, and it says so differently. On a
board whose query returns more than 5000 items, only the first 5000 are drawn,
and a newly created item usually sorts last. The item matches the query
perfectly and simply falls outside what is on screen, so the toast says that
instead.

If creation itself fails, say because a process makes a field required on
creation, an error toast carries the server's own message and nothing is
created. Fill the required fields in on the work item form instead; the board
deliberately does not put up its own creation dialog.

## Related

- [Change a field without opening the item](https://anykanban.com/docs/edit-in-place/change-a-field/)
- [Open the real work item form](https://anykanban.com/docs/edit-in-place/open-the-real-form/)
- [User Guide](https://anykanban.com/docs/user-guide/)