| name | triage-ready |
| description | Surfaces, ranks, and EXPLAINS the single best next issue in a Forge project — strictly read-only. Recomputes the live ready queue and explains what is blocked via `forge issue ready`/`blocked`/`stats`/`show`, always against the live kernel, never `forge board`. Recommends ONE issue with a one-line reason, then hands off; never claims, comments, closes, or mutates. Use when the user asks "what should I work on", "what's next", "what's ready", "pick/triage my next task", "top of the ready queue", "which issue should I start", "why is this issue blocked", or "what's blocking the most work". NOT for claiming or taking ownership of the pick (use claim-safety), not for everyday issue create/update/list/search/close/comment/dep CRUD (use issue-basics), not for reporting the current workflow stage or "where am I / what's in flight" (use status), not for orienting a whole session or routing to stage skills (use kernel), not for driving an issue to a merged PR (use smith).
|
| allowed-tools | Read, Bash(forge:*) |
| next | claim-safety |
| terminal | false |
Triage: what should I work on next
A read-only orientation skill. It answers "what is the single best thing to work
on right now, and why?" and hands the pick off to claim-safety / dev — it
never mutates the store itself.
Readiness in the Forge kernel is a derived read model: an issue is ready only
when every dependency is satisfied, it is unclaimed (no live lease), it is a
claimable type (epics and decisions never enter the queue), and no defer window
holds it back. Because it is derived, always recompute it — never trust a
cached "status == ready". Recompute means: run the query fresh each time.
Do NOT use board
forge board reads a legacy snapshot store, not the live kernel, so its readiness
can be stale or wrong. This skill uses forge issue ready, forge issue blocked,
and forge issue stats exclusively.
Procedure
1. Take the pulse
forge issue stats --json
Returns data.counts (open/done/cancelled — keys are present only when
non-zero, and there is no in_progress bucket: claimed work stays in status
open and is surfaced via active_claims), ready_count, blocked_count, and
active_claims. A high blocked_count relative to
ready_count is your signal that dependency repair (not new work) is the real
bottleneck — hand off to dependency-planning / backlog-hygiene.
2. Rank the ready queue
forge issue ready --json
data.issues[] comes back ordered by rank (priority ascending, then id), each
carrying id, title, type, priority (P0..P4), rank, blocked,
claimed_by, parent_id, labels[], and dependencies[]. The top item is your
default pick. Surface the top few (see Fork points for how many), not the whole
list.
3. Explain WHY the top item is ready
Do not just name it — justify it. Pull its full record:
forge issue show <id> --json
State the reason in one sentence, drawn from the record:
- Priority / rank —
P0 at rank 0 outranks everything below it.
- Dependencies satisfied — every id in
dependencies[] is closed/done, so
nothing gates it (blocked: false).
- Unclaimed —
claimed_by is null, so no other agent holds the lease.
- Claimable type — it is a
task/feature/bug, not an epic/decision.
4. Explain why the runners-up are NOT ready
forge issue blocked --json
For a blocked item, name the specific unmet dependency (from its dependencies[]
cross-referenced against forge issue show) — e.g. "blocked by forge-x which is
still open". This turns triage into an actionable map: the fastest way to unlock
the most work is usually to finish the shared blocker.
5. Hand off
Recommend ONE issue with its one-line justification, then stop. The caller claims
it (via claim-safety) and executes (via dev). Triage does not claim, comment,
or close — it is strictly read-only.
Reliability
- Recompute, never cache. Readiness is derived; re-run
forge issue ready
every session rather than remembering a prior "ready" verdict.
- Respect non-claimable types. Epics and decisions never appear in
ready
(the queue surfaces only claimable types — task/bug), so do not hand them
off as work. There is no claimable field in the CLI JSON; this is behavioral,
not a flag you can read.
- Check the envelope. Every
--json reply carries ok; on ok:false read
error.message and retry the query rather than guessing at state.
- Read-only. This skill runs only
stats/ready/blocked/show. If a fix is
needed, hand off — never mutate here.
Fork points
Editable knobs — change these to carve your own triage policy. This skill is a
canonical source you fork, not a fixed ladder.
| Knob | Default | How to change |
|---|
| Readiness query / filters | forge issue ready (whole queue) | Narrow to a slice, e.g. forge issue list --status open --priority P0 --json or post-filter ready output by labels[]/type to focus one workstream. |
| How many items to surface | Top 3 by rank | Raise for a broad standup view, lower to 1 for a strict "next task only" hand-off. |
| Stale threshold | forge issue stale --days 14 | Change --days to flag idle in-progress work sooner/later; surface stale claims as a caveat before recommending fresh work. |
| Priority ordering | Kernel rank (priority, then id) | Re-rank the ready list by your own weights — epic proximity (parent_id), label, or age — before picking. |
| Blocked-explain depth | One hop (direct unmet deps) | Trace transitively via repeated forge issue show when you need the full blocking chain; hand to graph-forensics for deep explain. |
