Organizing your spaces and types

Every space opens on a home board, the same shape as Home but scoped to that space. It is both the landing page for the space and the place where you create new content in it. The cards sit in two columns.

One column holds:

• Space: the space itself, its description and configuration
• Types: the types defined in the space, with a row for making one and All types for everything scoped to that space. Click a type to open its type page
• Create: Doc, Task, Canvas, and More for everything else
• Meetings: what is next in the space, then what has already happened, newest first

The other holds:

• Pinned: a tile grid of the space's pinned items, with Find and pin in the heading
• Ongoing chats: always scoped to this space, so everyone sees the same list
• Recently edited: the space's documents by when they last changed

Pinned items

A space's pins are shared and set by hand, so everyone in the space sees the same ones. Use Find and pin in the card heading, or drag any item from the space onto the card. Unpin by right-clicking and selecting "Unpin."

Chat

Ongoing chats lists the conversations in the space. Starting a new one scopes it to the space, so the AI receives the space's context and follows its AI instructions. See AI chat.

A space home has no search box of its own: Search in the sidebar covers the whole organization, and All types and See all links scope the Library to the space.

Open "Configure Space" from the toolbar overflow menu on the space home.

Name, description, color

The name and description explain what the space is for. The color is a hue slider that colors the space avatar throughout the interface. Every reference to the space, whether in the sidebar, search results, or document breadcrumbs, shows the same color, making it easy to recognize visually which space content belongs to.

AI instructions

Custom instructions the AI follows when working in this space. This is how you give the AI context about the team, project, or domain.

For example, a product design space might say: "This space contains product design documents. When creating tasks, always include a priority field. When writing specs, follow our format: problem, solution, tradeoffs, success criteria."

Every chat, skill, and outcome generated in this space inherits these instructions. This is what gives each space its own AI personality.

Skills

Skills created in this space are listed in the configuration for reference. See Skills for how to create and use them.

A nested space is simply a space that lives inside another space rather than at the top level. Create one with the + in the top right of the parent space and choose Space. Like any item, a space has a Lives in location; nesting just sets that location to the parent. The nested space appears in the parent's content list and inherits its access by default, and changing a space's location (from its Location pill) moves it and everything inside it, so a space works as a portable container for its context.

Use nesting for a genuine sub-area that has its own focus or members, for example a department space with a sub-space per team. When you just have many of the same kind of thing, reach for a type instead, so you do not end up with a sprawl of spaces.

The fastest way to create a type is to ask AI. In any AI chat, describe what you want to track ("a Bug type with priority, assignee, and steps to reproduce") and the AI will create it, with fields, workflow, and AI instructions. No templates to pick from, no pre-made catalogue. Every type you need, you can just ask for.

To create one manually, select "Type" from the create menu. Give it a name, add fields, and optionally enable a workflow. Types can live in a space or at the organization level.

Fields add structured data to every document with this type. Five field types are available:

• Text: Plain text values
• Link: References to other documents. You can configure which types are valid link targets and set a custom reverse label (the name shown in backlinks).
• Date: Date values
• Member: References to members of your organization
• Options: A fixed list of values to pick from. See Options fields

Each field can be configured as single-value or multi-value.

Add fields from the configuration page by typing a name and clicking "Add." Remove fields from the dropdown menu on each field.

An Options field carries a fixed set of values, so everything of the type is classified the same way. Severity, tier, category, and priority are what it is for. Lifecycle stages belong on a workflow's states instead.

Define the values on the field in the type editor. Add value appends one, and each value can be renamed or reordered. A field with no values yet reads "No values defined on this field."

On a document the field offers Select value, with a search box once the list is long. Values render as chips in tables, cards, type pages, and published pages, and can be single or multi select like any other field.

Renaming or removing a value leaves documents that already carry it untouched. A value that is no longer on the field is grouped under No longer offered in pickers and filters, so an existing document keeps reading correctly.

You can ask AI chat to add an Options field to a type, set a value on a document, or filter a search by one.

A type's entries table, and its workflow board with the Completed and Later tables, can surface each of the type's fields as its own column and filter.

• Columns: Member fields render as avatar chips, Options fields as value chips, and Link fields as the referenced titles. Date and text fields flatten to text. Empty cells keep the grid aligned.
• Filter bar: A pill bar sits next to the search field. Member fields open a people picker, Link fields a typeahead picker limited to the field's target types, Date fields a range picker, and Options fields a checklist of the field's values. Filters apply to the entries table and to the workflow view at once, and they live in the URL, so a filtered view is shareable and Back and Forward step through it.
• Display menu: A Display dropdown next to the search field toggles individual columns. Member, link, and date fields are on by default, along with the base columns; free-text fields are off.

The AI can filter its own searches on the same fields, so "Bugs reported this month" resolves to one scoped query. See Search results in chat.

A workflow adds status tracking to the type. Click "Add Workflow" in the configuration to enable it.

Every workflow has four base states:

• Inbox: Where new entries land by default
• In Progress: The active state. You can rename it, but it cannot be removed.
• Completed: Done
• Later: Deferred

Between Inbox and Completed you can add more states, including several custom "in progress" ones. Click "Customise statuses" to add, rename, reorder, or remove the states you add. These become the columns on the kanban board.

Remove the workflow entirely with "Remove Workflow" to return the type to a simple list.

When a type has a workflow, the Active tab shows a kanban board. Columns represent workflow states. Drag cards between columns to change status. Columns can be resized and reordered.

Cards open in an inline popover when clicked, so you can review and edit without leaving the board. Each card also carries an assignee avatar on its trailing edge, with a dashed placeholder when no one is assigned. Click it to open a searchable people picker, type a name, and reassign the card without opening it. The same picker backs the assignee shown in a card's detail view.

Custom instructions the AI follows when working with entries of this type. For example, "When creating bugs, always include steps to reproduce and expected behavior."

A search worth keeping can be saved as its own Search document from the filter row, in search, the Library, and a space's home. Reopen it to run it again, always against what is in Tana now, and pin it like any other document to keep it a click away.

A saved search stores how you had the results arranged alongside the query, so it comes back grouped and sorted the way you left it. Editing an item from the result list, changing its status or assignee, updates the row in place rather than leaving a stale one behind.

The AI can save a search too, and can point you at one that already exists rather than composing a new query. See Search results in chat.

Archive a type from the "..." menu on its type page; a confirmation dialog appears first. An archived type and all its items drop out of every menu, picker, type palette, list, Library view, and search result, including semantic search, and the change takes effect immediately without a reload. Existing items keep their type assignment and show a muted "(archived)" label in place of the normal type badge. The type page shows a callout explaining the state, with an "Unarchive" button that makes the type available again everywhere.

To find an archived type again, open Recently archived under Organization in Settings. It lists every type you have archived, newest first, with how long ago each was archived. Click a row to open that type's page, where you can Unarchive it.

Delete a space from the overflow menu on its home page. Deleting a space removes the space and all its contents, including nested spaces. A confirmation dialog warns before proceeding.