Two choices, both always on screen
When you write anything into a 1:1, the choice of who can read it sits right next to the box — not behind a "more options" link, and not a switch you set once and forget.
Shared means both of you can read it. That is the default, and it is what most of a 1:1 should be.
Private to me means only you can read it. The other person never sees it, and never sees that it exists.
Private notes are what makes the rest of the 1:1 usable. A manager needs somewhere to think through a difficult conversation before having it. A report needs somewhere to write "I am not happy about this" before deciding whether to say so. If neither side has that, both sides end up keeping their real notes in a document somewhere else, and the 1:1 record becomes a polite fiction.
The promise is kept in the database, not the screen
A private note is not hidden by the page. The rule lives in the database's own row-level security: the query that fetches somebody else's private note comes back empty, whoever is asking and however they ask.
Both directions are the same rule. Your manager cannot read your private notes by exactly the same clause that stops you reading theirs — neither side is privileged, and there is no role anywhere that widens it.
What you can change, and what you cannot
You can move any of your own notes between shared and private, in either direction, whenever you like. Sharing something you first wrote for yourself is a normal thing to do.
What nobody can do is change that for somebody else's note. The other person in your 1:1 cannot make your private note visible, and cannot quietly hide a shared item from you either. The only thing they can do to an item you wrote is tick a shared action item off, which is the point of an action item.
Frequently asked questions
- Can the other person see my private note?
- No — and they cannot see that it exists either. It does not appear in their list, in any count on the page, or in a search. When they open the same 1:1, the page they get simply has one fewer item on it, with nothing to indicate that anything was left out.
- Can HR or an admin read it?
- No. This is the one module in ASHR.work where HR admins get nothing at all. Everywhere else an HR admin can read across the organisation, because that is their job. A private note in a 1:1 that HR could read would not be a private note, so the permission simply does not exist for anyone to grant.
- What about my manager's manager?
- No. Being further up the reporting line gives no access to a 1:1 you are not in — not to the private items, and not to the shared ones either.
- Can the other person make my private note public?
- No. Only the person who wrote a note can change who can read it. Nobody else can widen it, and nobody else can narrow one of your shared items to hide it from you either.
- Why can't an action item be private?
- Because an action item is a commitment between the two of you, and one that only the writer can see is not a commitment — it would let somebody "assign" work to a person who can never read it. If it should be yours alone, make it a note instead. The form will not let you save a private action item.
- Is any of this in the audit log?
- The fact that an item was added or changed is recorded, along with whether it was shared or private. What you actually wrote is never copied there, because the audit log is something administrators can read.
This guide also lives in the help centre at /help/one-on-ones/private-notes-in-a-one-on-one, which is its canonical home.