We present the notion of nonabelian descent type, which classifies torsors up to twisting by a Galois cocycle. This relies on the previous construction of kernels and nonabelian Galois 2-cohomology due to Springer and Borovoi. The necessity of descent types arises in the context of the descent theory where no torsors are given a priori, for example, when we wish to study the arithmetic properties such as the Brauer–Manin obstruction to the Hasse principle on homogeneous spaces without rational points. This new definition also unifies the types by Colliot-Thélène–Sansuc, the extended types by Harari–Skorobogatov, and the finite descent types by Harpaz–Wittenberg.