Annotate items

This is the annotator’s view: opening a queue, working through its items one at a time, and submitting an answer for every label it carries. Everything below plays out inside the annotation workspace itself.

Open the workspace

Get in the same way Explore a queue describes: click Start Annotating (or Resume Skipped) from the queue, or open an item directly from the Items tab. Either way lands you in the workspace on a specific item.

If you land on a message instead

Sometimes the workspace hands you back a message instead of an item:

• Item Reserved, when someone else already has that item open. Click Skip to Next Item to move on
• Queue Not Active, if the queue isn’t active. A manager has to reactivate it, see Explore a queue for where
• Assigned to {name}, if the item belongs to someone else, a queue manager controls that assignment. Click Skip to Next Item to move on
• All Done!, once there’s nothing left assigned to you

Read the source

The workspace splits into two resizable panes: the source on the left, the labels on the right. Drag the divider between them if you want more room for either side. The left pane renders whatever the item points to, a trace, a span, a session, a dataset row, a prototype run, or a voice call, so you can judge it before answering anything on the right.

Answer the labels

If the queue’s creator wrote instructions, they sit in a collapsible section above the labels, open by default so you see them on your first item. Once you know the guidance, collapse it to get it out of the way.

The right pane lists every label the queue carries under a Labels heading. What each label’s control looks like depends on its type. Labels covers what each type is for and Label types & values has the exact constraints.

You can’t submit until every label has an answer. Leave one blank and the submit button stays disabled; nothing more happens until you try to submit. Press Cmd/Ctrl+Enter and a reminder names exactly which labels are still missing.

Numeric and text answers are also checked against the label’s configured bounds. Even if the control lets a value slip past, the check still runs again on the server when you submit. Anything out of range gets rejected; bring it back within the label’s min, max, step, or length and submit again.

Add a note

Below the labels, an optional Notes field lets you leave free-text context on the item (“Add notes for this item…”). It’s your own commentary alongside the labels, not a label itself.

Submit

The submit button’s text tells you what submitting will actually do:

• Submit & Next is the default: save your answers and move to the next item
• Submit for Review shows instead when the queue requires reviewer approval, your answers go to a reviewer before the item counts as done
• Update & Next shows when you’re revising an answer you already submitted

If a reviewer sends an item back with feedback, it shows up in the header’s Comments button and as a Reviewer feedback alert at the top of the right pane. See Review submissions.

Skip an item

Click Skip in the header, or press S. A skipped item isn’t marked complete, it just steps out of your way so you can come back to it later. Skip is disabled once an item is completed or already pending review. On a completed item the button’s tooltip flips to explain why; on a pending-review item it’s just greyed out.

Move between items

Move through the queue with these controls:

• Previous and Next in the footer, alongside a position indicator (n / total)
• Back to Queue in the header, which takes you out of the workspace and back to the queue’s detail view
• Show completed, which toggles whether items you’ve already finished are included as you move through the list

Keyboard shortcuts

Key	Action
Tab / Shift+Tab	Move between labels
1-9	Quick-select a categorical option or star rating
Cmd/Ctrl+Enter	Submit and move to the next item
S	Skip the current item
← / →	Previous / next item
?	Toggle this shortcuts overlay

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