Control who can see an OKR

Last updated: September 4, 2026

Every Objective, Key Result and Initiative is either visible to Everyone at your workspace (the default) or Limited to the users and teams you list. Visibility controls who can see a goal, not who can edit it. Change it from the goal's More → Limit visibility menu, or by clicking the Limited pill once it is restricted. Rhythms Admins can always see every goal.

Who can see a Limited goal

  • Its owners and delegates, automatically. Adding an owner or delegate to a Limited goal grants them access, and Rhythms asks you to confirm.
  • The users you list, and every member of the teams you list (including sub-team members).
  • Rhythms Admins.

For everyone else the goal is hidden from lists, views, search, documents, reports and chat answers, and its link opens nothing. Guests follow the same rule: they see public goals and any Limited goal they are listed on.

Limit who can see a goal

  1. Open the goal. Under the title pills, click More → Limit visibility. (This item appears only while the goal is public.)
  2. In the Who can view this Objective dialog, choose Limited. The owners appear under Users and Teams marked "Assigned to this Objective"; delegates are marked "Delegate for this Objective".
  3. Click Add and pick users and teams. Remove an entry with the × next to it (owners and delegates cannot be removed here).
  4. Click Save. The change applies immediately.
Who can view this Objective dialog with Everyone at the workspace, Limited, and a Users and Teams list

To edit the list later, click the Limited pill on the goal, which opens the same dialog. To open the goal up again, choose Everyone at <workspace> and save.

Who can change visibility

Anyone who can edit the goal: by default its owners, their managers, its delegates and Rhythms Admins. Visibility is an ordinary edit field, so it does not need the higher manage permission that owners and delegates require. If you cannot see Limit visibility, either the goal is already Limited (use the Limited pill) or you do not have edit access to it.

Children and parents

Visibility is set per goal and is not inherited when you change it: restricting an Objective does not restrict its existing Key Results, Initiatives or child Objectives, and each must be changed individually. Two things do carry visibility across:

  • When you add a child from the parent's ⋯ menu or the create form, the new child starts with the parent's visibility and list, and each inherited entry is marked "Included because parent OKR is shared with this team/user". You can edit the list before saving.
  • Children created through chat, the bulk importer or the API do not copy the parent's list; they use the workspace default (public) unless a visibility is given.

Visibility also affects rollup: a Limited child under a public parent, or a Limited child that some of a Limited parent's viewers cannot see, stops contributing to the parent's progress (its weight is set to 0) until its visibility is widened; see Understanding OKR Automatic Rollup.

Drafts and team defaults

Draft goals are Limited to their creator, owners and owning teams until published, whatever visibility they will have afterwards. A Rhythms Admin can also set team-level OKRs to be viewable by team members only in the OKR permission settings; new team goals then start Limited to their team and creator, and you can widen them per goal.

Frequently asked questions

Does visibility give edit access? No. Who can edit is decided by ownership, delegation and the OKR permission settings; see Rhythms OKR Roles and Permissions.

Can guests see Limited goals? Only if they are listed as a user or belong to a listed team. See Guest Users in Rhythms.

Do Slack and chat respect visibility? Yes. Search, chat answers and Slack messages only include goals the asking user can see.

I can't find a goal I was told about. Ask the owner to add you (or your team) under Users and Teams, or ask a Rhythms Admin to check. If you were just added, refresh the page.

What should be Limited? Company and team OKRs work best public, since alignment depends on people seeing them. Reserve Limited for genuinely sensitive goals (M&A, compensation, security, pre-launch), and review the lists at the start of each period and after team changes.

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