Pull someone into the work, without leaving the work
Discussion happens on items. Reaching the person who needs to see it usually doesn't. You write the comment, then you go and tell them in Slack, or in a meeting, or by tapping them on the shoulder.
Mentions close that gap. Type @, pick a name, and that person finds out.
Mention someone
Type @ anywhere you can write rich text. A list of project members opens. Keep typing to narrow it, then press Enter or click a name. Names and email addresses both match, so @anna and @anna@ get you to the same person.
Full names work too. Typing @Anna Lind keeps the list open across the space and narrows to Anna. You don't have to remember whether she's the only Anna in the project.
The mention is saved as a link to that person. Click it to open their profile: their role and email, what they're currently working on, and their recent activity in the project.
You can mention someone in:
- An item description
- A milestone description
- A comment on an item
- A comment on a milestone
Only active members are suggested. Someone whose membership has been disabled won't appear in the list, though older mentions of them still render and still link to their profile.
Mentioning yourself does nothing. You don't get notified about your own writing.
What the mentioned person sees
Mentions collect on the Watching page, under a Mentions tab. The sidebar shows an unread count next to Watching, so a mention is visible from anywhere in the project without going looking for it.
Each card shows who mentioned you, which item or milestone it was on, and the sentence you were named in. Open the page with unread mentions waiting and Mentions is the tab you land on. Otherwise you land on Watching, as before.
One thread per item, not one per mention
Five mentions across five comments on the same item produce one card, not five.
Each card is a thread: one per person, per item or milestone. A new mention updates the thread in place, moves it to the top, and marks it unread again if you'd already read it. That last part is what makes a deliberate second ping work after someone has read and moved on.
A thread named you more than once says so, with a count.
Reading and deferring
Mark a thread read with the envelope button on the card. Mark it unread again with the same button. Marking something back to unread is how you defer it, so it isn't a lesser action than reading it.
Mark all read clears everything at once.
Cards hold their position while you work through them. A thread you mark read doesn't jump out from under your cursor, which matters when you're clearing several in a row.
Watching an item you were pulled into
Being mentioned doesn't subscribe you to anything.
Some tools add you to an item the moment someone names you. GoalPath doesn't. Being named by a colleague shouldn't quietly grow the list of things you get email about.
Instead, a mention on an item carries the same eye icon you'd find on the item itself. One click and you're watching it, with everything that means: an email on every new comment and status change. It's opt-in and you can undo it.
Mentions on a milestone have no such button, because milestones have no watchers. Neither do mentions on items for Viewers and Stakeholders, who can read and comment but can't watch.
What mentions don't do
Mentions are deliberately quiet:
- No email. Mentions live in the app. Watching an item is what sends you email.
- No auto-watch. Being mentioned notifies you once. It doesn't subscribe you. See Watching Items for what watching does send you.
- No group mentions. There's no
@teamor@everyone. Those are the main source of noise in every tool that has them. - No notifications for anything else. Status changes, assignments and comments on watched items don't produce mentions. Only someone naming you does.
- No mentioning people outside the project. You can't invite someone by mentioning them.
Editing text that mentions someone
Saving a description again without changing it notifies nobody, even though the mentions are still in there.
Editing to add a mention does notify the person you added. This is a deliberate difference from tools where a name added during an edit silently reaches no one.
Removing a mention notifies nobody and leaves the existing thread alone. Threads outlive the text that created them, the same way they outlive a deleted comment.
Names in old mentions
A mention stores the name as it was written. If someone changes their display name, text that already mentions them keeps the old one.
This is on purpose. Re-checking every name every time a comment renders would put a lookup in front of text that should just appear. The link still resolves to the right person, because the mention stores their identity, not their name.
Who can be mentioned
Anyone in the project, in any role. Stakeholders and Viewers can comment, so they can be named in a discussion, and they read their mentions on the same Watching page as everyone else.