> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.meetsquad.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Goals

> What your team is working toward, and how Squad uses it to decide what matters.

A goal is what your team is trying to achieve, written down where Squad can read it. "Cut
enterprise churn below 8%". "Ship SSO by Q3". Goals give Squad the frame it needs to tell an
interesting finding from a relevant one.

<Frame>
  <img className="block dark:hidden" src="https://mintcdn.com/squad/O_98Wy8uNjlYcgBb/images/goals-light.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=O_98Wy8uNjlYcgBb&q=85&s=746e955cf8ea8a20da54a09f4ebe5607" alt="Goals" width="2880" height="1800" data-path="images/goals-light.png" />

  <img className="hidden dark:block" src="https://mintcdn.com/squad/O_98Wy8uNjlYcgBb/images/goals-dark.png?fit=max&auto=format&n=O_98Wy8uNjlYcgBb&q=85&s=43ce6f4c62e0e3022b39686805a3a3bd" alt="Goals" width="2880" height="1800" data-path="images/goals-dark.png" />
</Frame>

For where goals sit in the chain, see [The evidence pipeline](/pipeline).

## What a goal does

Squad reads your goals in two places.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="When an insight is created" icon="zap">
    Squad decides which goals it supports and writes those links itself. You will find them already
    attached on the insight's **Goals** panel.
  </Card>

  <Card title="When Squad proposes actions" icon="square-check">
    It is shown your goals and their importance so that relevance to what you care about shapes the
    ranking it hands back. An insight that supports a 5-importance goal gets treated as more urgent
    than an equally-evidenced one that supports nothing.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

<Warning>
  A goal never changes an insight's score. Insight scores come from evidence alone, volume, source
  diversity, and recency. Raising a goal from importance 3 to 5 will not move a single number on the
  Insights page. What it changes is how Squad weighs relevance when choosing and ordering work.
</Warning>

## Creating a goal

<Steps>
  <Step title="Click New on the Goals page" icon="plus">
    Squad creates an untitled goal and opens it immediately with the title selected, so you can type
    straight over it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Write it in place" icon="pencil">
    Title, description, and importance are all edited in place. There is no save button.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Set importance" icon="trophy">
    **Importance** is five squares, 1 to 5. Set it by clicking the square you want. Use the range
    honestly. If everything is a 5, importance tells Squad nothing.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## The Goals list

The Goals page opens as a card grid. Switch to the list view from the toolbar if you prefer rows.
Each goal shows its `GL-` reference, title, importance, and the date it was created.

Search and filters work the same as everywhere else in Squad, and the state is held in the URL.
Right-click a card or row for **Open**, **Copy ID**, **Copy URL**, **Copy content as JSON**, and
**Delete**.

## Inside a goal

<Icon icon="zap" /> **Insights.** The top five insights linked to this goal, as a table. **Manage**
(or **Add insight** when there are none) opens the full list in a dialog where you can search for
insights and attach them, or remove ones that do not belong. Removing a link leaves both the goal
and the insight intact. See [Relationships](/relationships).

<Icon icon="info" /> **Info.** Importance, the number of linked insights, and the creation date.

<Icon icon="link" /> **Referenced by.** Any one-pager or knowledge document whose body cites this
goal.

<Icon icon="activity" /> **History.** Every change to the goal, and who or what made it.

## How many goals to keep

Enough to cover what the team is actually working on, few enough that the importance scale means
something. Five to ten active goals with honest importance values gives Squad a usable signal.
Thirty goals all set to 5 gives it none.

Goals with no linked insights are worth a look. Either nothing in your evidence bears on them, which
is itself worth knowing, or the goal is written too vaguely for Squad to match anything against it.

## Cookbook

**Set up a quarter.** Create one goal per quarterly objective. Write the description as the outcome
you want, not the feature you plan to build. Set importance so the top two are 5 and the rest sit
lower. Then open your highest-scoring insights and check which goals Squad attached.

**Find the strategy gap.** Open a goal with zero linked insights. Either your evidence says nothing
about it (which is a signal in itself) or the goal needs rewriting to be specific enough to match.

**Build the case for a goal.** Open the goal, read its linked insights top to bottom, and use the
strongest one to generate a [one-pager](/one-pagers). The document will cite the evidence back to
individual customer quotes.