triage

name	triage
description	Query and inspect GitHub issues with natural language. Use when user says "show my issues", "what's assigned to me", "list open bugs", "summarize issue

Triage

Read-only — does not create or modify issues.

Critical Rules

• Read cross-cutting behaviors first: skills/shared/references/cross-cutting.md
• Always use --json flags for structured data, then present human-readable summaries
• Surface related issues when viewing any single issue — search by keywords from title/body
• Verify gh is available before running any commands

Prerequisites Check

gh auth status

If this fails, tell the user to run gh auth login first.

Capabilities

1. List Issues

Translate natural language queries into gh issue list flags.

Query translation examples:

User says	Command
"show my issues"	gh issue list --assignee @me --json number,title,state,labels,updatedAt
"list open bugs"	gh issue list --label "bug" --state open --json number,title,assignees,updatedAt
"what needs triage"	gh issue list --search "no:label" --state open --json number,title,createdAt,author
"issues updated this week"	gh issue list --search "updated:>YYYY-MM-DD" --json number,title,state,updatedAt
"unassigned issues"	gh issue list --search "no:assignee" --state open --json number,title,labels,createdAt
"issues mentioning auth"	gh issue list --search "auth" --json number,title,state,labels
"closed issues this month"	gh issue list --state closed --search "closed:>YYYY-MM-01" --json number,title,closedAt

Common flags:

gh issue list \
  --state open|closed|all \
  --assignee @me|USERNAME \
  --label "label-name" \
  --search "QUERY" \
  --limit 30 \
  --json number,title,state,labels,assignees,createdAt,updatedAt,closedAt,author,milestone

Output format: Present as a readable table or list. Include issue number, title, state, labels, and assignee. Add relative timestamps (e.g., "3 days ago").

2. View Issue Detail

Show comprehensive issue information with context.

# Get full issue data
gh issue view NUMBER --json number,title,state,body,labels,assignees,author,createdAt,updatedAt,closedAt,comments,milestone,projectItems

# Get linked branches and PRs
gh issue develop NUMBER --list 2>/dev/null

Present:

1. Header — number, title, state, author, creation date
2. Body — formatted issue description
3. Labels & milestone — current labels and milestone
4. Assignees — who's working on it
5. Discussion summary — summarize comment thread (key points, decisions, open questions)
6. Linked work — branches, PRs, referenced issues
7. Related issues — search for related issues by keywords from the title/body:

   gh issue list --search "keyword1 keyword2" --state all --json number,title,state --limit 10
   

   Present any issues that look related.

3. Status Dashboard

Overview of the current issue landscape.

# Issues assigned to me
gh issue status --json assigned,created,mentioned

# Open issue counts by label
gh issue list --state open --json labels --limit 100

Present:

• Issues assigned to me (open)
• Issues I created (open)
• Issues mentioning me
• Open issue count by label category (type, status, area)
• Recently updated issues

4. Comment on Issues

Add a comment to provide context or ask questions.

gh issue comment NUMBER --body "Comment text"

When the user asks to comment on an issue, compose the comment and confirm with the user before posting.

Workflow

1. Parse the user's natural language request
2. Translate to appropriate gh command with --json output
3. Execute and parse the JSON response
4. Present results in a clean, readable format
5. When viewing a single issue, always search for and surface related issues
6. Suggest follow-up actions (e.g., "Want me to assign this?", "Should I add a label?")

Troubleshooting

gh not found:

• The GitHub CLI is required. Tell the user to install it: brew install gh (macOS) or see https://cli.github.com

Not in a git repository:

• Some commands need a repo context. Ask the user to navigate to a repository or specify the repo with --repo owner/name.

No issues found:

• Check if the search query is too narrow. Suggest broadening the search or trying different keywords.
• Verify the repo has issues enabled: gh repo view --json hasIssuesEnabled

Rate limiting:

• If API calls fail with rate limit errors, wait and retry. Inform the user about the limitation.