Project setup

All labeling activities in Label Studio occur in the context of a project.

1. Create a project
2. Import data.
3. Select a template to configure the labeling interface for your dataset. Set up the labeling interface for your project.
4. (Optional) Set up annotation settings for your project.

Create a project

When you’re creating a project, you can save your progress at any time. You don’t need to import your data and set up the labeling interface all at the same time, but you can.

1. In the Label Studio UI, click Create Project.
2. Type a project name and a description. If you want, choose a color for your project.
3. If you’re ready to import your data, click Data Import and import data from the Label Studio UI. For details about import formats and data types, see Get data into Label Studio.
4. If you’re ready to set up the labeling interface, click Labeling Setup and choose a template or create a custom configuration for labeling. See Set up the labeling interface for your project.
5. When you’re done, click Save to save your project.

You can also create a project from a template by clicking Use Template. See more about project templates.

After you save a project, any other collaborator with access to the Label Studio instance can view your project, perform labeling, and make changes. To use role-based access control, you need to use Label Studio Enterprise Edition.

Set up annotation settings for your project

Set up annotation settings to configure how you want annotators to perform labeling for your project.

Set up instructions for data labelers

In the project settings, you can add instructions and choose whether to show the instructions to annotators before they perform labeling.

1. Within a project on the Label Studio UI, click Settings.

3. Type instructions and choose whether to show the instructions to annotators before labeling. If you want to provide additional details or links for reference, instructions support HTML markup.
4. Click Save.
   Click the project name to return to the data manager view.

Annotators can view instructions at any time when labeling by clicking the (i) button from the labeling interface.

How task overlap works

For example, if you want all tasks to be annotated by at least 2 annotators:

• Set the minimum number of annotations to 2
• Enforce the overlap for 100% of tasks.

If you want at least half of the tasks to be annotated by at least 3 people:

• Set the minimum number of annotations to 3
• Enforce the overlap for 50% of tasks.

If you’re using manual distribution of tasks, annotators with tasks assigned to them label those tasks first, then Label Studio automatically distributes the remaining tasks to the project annotators so that the desired overlap and minimum number of annotations per task can be achieved.

Set annotating options

If you want, you can allow empty annotations.

1. Within a project on the Label Studio UI, click Settings.
2. Click Annotation Settings.
3. Under Annotating Options, select Allow empty annotations. By default, empty annotations are allowed.

Set up task sampling

In Label Studio Community Edition, you can set up task sampling from the command line when you start Label Studio or from the Label Studio UI.

• To start a project with specific task sampling, see Set up task sampling for your project.
• To change task sampling settings from the Label Studio UI, do the following:
  • Within a project on the Label Studio UI, click Settings.
  • On the General settings tab, under Task Sampling, choose between Sequential sampling and Random sampling.
  • Click Save.

Set up instructions for task reviewers

In the project settings, you can add instructions and choose whether to show the instructions to reviewers before they start reviewing annotated tasks.

1. Within a project on the Label Studio UI, click Settings.
2. Click Review.
3. Type instructions and choose whether to show the instructions to reviewers before reviewing annotated tasks. If you want to provide additional details or links for reference, instructions support HTML markup.
4. Click Save.
5. Click Data Manager to return to the data manager view.

Set reviewing options

Configure the reviewing settings for your project.

1. Within a project on the Label Studio UI, click Settings.
2. Click Review.
3. Under Reviewing Options, choose whether to mark a task as reviewed if at least one annotation has been reviewed, or only after all annotations for a task have been processed.
4. Under Reviewing Options, choose whether to anonymize annotators when reviewing tasks.
   Your changes save automatically.