Issue Triage
Issue Triage is a GitHub workflow automation skill that classifies new issues into one of four verdict categories, ACCEPT, NEEDS-INFO, DUPLICATE, or DECLINE, and assigns appropriate labels and next actions to help maintainers prioritize work efficiently. Use it when you need rapid triage of incoming GitHub issues across watched repositories, with automatic deduplication, label assignment, and decision-ready summaries that keep resolution time under 30 seconds per issue.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/aaronjmars/aeon /tmp/issue-triage && cp -r /tmp/issue-triage/skills/issue-triage ~/.claude/skills/issue-triageSKILL.md
> **${var}** — Repo (`owner/repo`) to triage. If empty, triages all watched repos.
<!-- autoresearch: variation D — decision-first triage: every issue gets a verdict + one concrete next action; duplicate detection + multi-dim labels; boilerplate comments removed -->
If `${var}` is set and does not match `owner/repo`, abort with `issue-triage: invalid var — expected owner/repo` and exit. If `${var}` is set, target only that repo.
## Why decision-first
A maintainer's scarce resource is decision time, not labels. For every new issue this skill emits one of four **verdicts** so the maintainer can act in under 30 seconds:
| Verdict | Meaning | Action taken |
|---|---|---|
| **ACCEPT** | Clear, in-scope, actionable | Apply `type` + `priority` labels (+ `area` if inferable); suggest reviewer if `CODEOWNERS` resolves |
| **NEEDS-INFO** | Missing repro, version, env, or scope | Apply `needs-info`; post ≤3 specific questions |
| **DUPLICATE** | Overlaps an open or recently-closed issue | Apply `duplicate`; reference the original; close only if high-confidence |
| **DECLINE** | Off-topic, out-of-scope, or spam | Apply `wontfix` or `invalid`; suggest alternative venue if any |
## Config
Reads repos from `memory/watched-repos.md`:
```markdown
# memory/watched-repos.md
- owner/repo
- another-owner/another-repo
```
If the file is missing and `${var}` is empty, log `ISSUE_TRIAGE_OK no-watched-repos` and exit.
---
Read `memory/MEMORY.md` for context.
Read `memory/triaged-issues.json` (if present; else treat as `{}`) for previously-triaged issue numbers per repo.
Read the last 7 days of `memory/logs/` as a fallback dedup signal.
## Steps
### 1. Pick targets
If `${var}` is set → `targets = [${var}]`. Else `targets = ` non-comment, non-blank lines from `memory/watched-repos.md` with `- ` prefix stripped.
Per-run budget: **≤10 new issues per repo** (tunable — raise/lower as repo volume demands). If more, triage the N oldest and log the overflow.
### 2. Fetch repo label schema + candidate issues
For each target repo:
```bash
# Cache existing label set once per repo so we know which labels to auto-create
gh label list -R owner/repo --json name,color --limit 200 > .cache/labels-${owner}-${repo}.json
# Open issues opened in the last 48h (gh issue list excludes PRs by default)
gh issue list -R owner/repo --state open \
--json number,title,body,labels,author,createdAt,comments,reactionGroups \
--search "created:>=$(date -u -d '48 hours ago' +%Y-%m-%d)" \
--limit 25
```
Filter out issues whose number is already present in `memory/triaged-issues.json["owner/repo"]` or already carries any of `type:*`, `priority:*`, `needs-info`, `duplicate`, `wontfix`, `invalid`, `urgent`, `bug`, `feature`, `question`, `docs`, `chore`, `security`, `good-first-issue`. (Pre-existing labels = already triaged.)
If zero candidates across all repos, log `ISSUE_TRIAGE_OK no-new-issues` and exit.
### 3. Duplicate pass (before classification)
For each candidate, query recent issues (open + closed) on the same repo:
```bash
gh search issues "is:issue" --repo owner/repo --limit 50 \
--json number,title,state,url,createdAt
```
Mark as **likely duplicate** if any of:
- Title token overlap ≥ 70 % with an existing issue opened in the last 180 days (stopword-stripped, case-folded)
- An identifying string (exception name, stack frame, exit code, URL path, error message fragment) appears verbatim in another issue's title or body
- The issue body explicitly references another (`#123`, "same as", "related to")
If duplicate: verdict = **DUPLICATE**, skip classification, record the referenced issue number.
### 4. Classify non-duplicates
From title + body + first 3 comments, emit a classification record:
- **type** — exactly one: `bug`, `feature`, `question`, `docs`, `chore`, `security`
- **priority** — exactly one: `p0` (security / data loss / outage / blocker), `p1` (high-impact bug or high-demand feature), `p2` (normal), `p3` (nice-to-have)
- **area** — repo-specific component inferred from file paths, stack traces, or explicit mention; omit if unclear
- **needs-info** — true if any of {reliable repro missing, version missing, environment missing, scope unclear} applies
- **good-first-issue** — true only if self-contained, no architectural context required, and `area` is identified
Verdict:
- `type=security` OR `priority=p0` → verdict **ACCEPT** with `urgent` label added
- Off-topic / spam / out-of-scope → verdict **DECLINE**
- `needs-info=true` → verdict **NEEDS-INFO**
- Otherwise → verdict **ACCEPT**
### 5. Apply labels (schema-safe)
Collect the full label set for the issue. For each label:
- If it exists in the cached label list → skip to apply
- If missing → create it first with a sensible default:
| Label | Color | Description |
|---|---|---|
| `bug`, `feature`, `question`, `docs`, `chore`, `security` | `#1d76db` | type: <one-line> |
| `priority:p0` | `#b60205` | priority: critical |
| `priority:p1` | `#d93f0b` | priority: high |
| `priority:p2` | `#fbca04` | priority: normal |
| `priority:p3` | `#c5def5` | priority: low |
| `needs-info` | `#fbca04` | awaiting reporter response |
| `urgent` | `#b60205` | security or p0 |
| `duplicate` | `#cfd3d7` | duplicate of another issue |
| `good-first-issue` | `#7057ff` | well-scoped for newcomers |
| `wontfix`, `invalid` | `#e4e669` | declined |
```bash
# Wrap label creation in try/log — if the API returns 422 (already-exists race, protected label, etc.),
# log ISSUE_TRIAGE_LABEL_SKIPPED: <name> and continue rather than aborting the whole run.
gh label create "<name>" -R owner/repo --color <hex> --description "<text>" \
|| echo "ISSUE_TRIAGE_LABEL_SKIPPED: <name>" # only if missing
gh issue edit <N> -R owner/repo --add-label "<comma-separated-set>" \
|| echo "ISSUE_TRIAGE_LABEL_SKIPPED: issue=<N>" # one call per issue
```
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