Watchers

Following work you do not own — set on the project, inherited by its tasks, adjustable one task at a time.

A watcher is somebody who hears about a piece of work without owning it. Watching is how the account manager stays across the client project she is not doing the work on, and how you keep an eye on the task you handed to somebody else.

Watching is not the same as being assigned. One task has one owner; any number of people can follow it. If two people genuinely share a piece of work, that is two tasks, or a parent with subtasks — not two owners.

Watchers belong to the project

You do not set watchers task by task. You set them once, on the project, and every task in that project inherits the list.

When you create a project, the form shows everyone on your workspace with a tick beside each name. Everyone who will actually be able to see the project starts ticked; anyone who will not is listed too, marked so you know they will hear nothing until they are given access. Select all and Select none are there for the two common answers.

Afterwards, the project page has a Watchers panel listing who is currently following it. An admin presses Edit watchers, ticks and unticks, and presses Save watchers.

Inheritance is live, not a copy

Adding somebody to a project's watcher list covers the tasks already in it, not only the ones created afterwards. Taking somebody off takes effect everywhere at once. Nothing is ever copied into a task when it is created, which is why the list you see on the project is always the list that is actually in force.

Losing access ends it, immediately. Somebody who can no longer see a project stops hearing about it the moment that is true, whatever lists they are still named on. Access always wins over a watcher row; there is no combination of settings that leaks work to somebody who cannot see it.

Following one task, without the whole project

On a task, the sidebar shows Watchers — everyone who will hear about this one — with a short note beside each name saying why they are there:

It says	It means
From the project	They watch the project, so they watch this
Assigned here	The work is theirs, so they follow it
Wrote a note	They joined the discussion, so they were added
This task	They chose to follow this one on its own

Underneath is a single control: Watch this task, or Stop watching this task if you already do. Two things it handles quietly:

Following one task you would otherwise miss. You do not have to be on the project's list.
Stepping off one task you would otherwise get. If you watch the project but not this particular task, stopping is remembered as its own decision — it survives somebody else later re-saving the project's watcher list. You stay on the project; you are just off that one thing.

Being assigned a task, or writing a note on one, adds you to that task automatically. That is the behaviour people expect and it saves a step, but it is not a trap: the Stop watching this task control is right there.

Who can change what

Anyone who can see a task can start or stop watching it for themselves — guests included, because a guest who is in the discussion should be able to hear about the discussion. Putting somebody else on or off a task, and editing a project's list, is an admin's job.

When you want quiet without leaving

Two different things, in two different places:

A whole project you would rather not hear about — mute it under your name → Notifications. You keep every bit of access you had; you simply stop being told.
One task inside a project you do want to hear about — Stop watching this task, above.

Both are covered on Notifications and summaries.

What watching gets you

The watcher list is the audience for everything sjTasks sends: the bell, the emails, the "what changed" part of your daily summary. It also feeds one bucket on your dashboard — Watched, nobody owns it, the open work in the projects you follow that has nobody's name on it. That bucket is the whole argument for watching a project you are not working in.