triage

name	triage
description	Move issues and external PRs through a state machine of triage roles — categorise, verify, grill if needed, and write agent-ready briefs.
disable-model-invocation	true
category	development
risk	safe
source	community
source_repo	mattpocock/skills
source_type	community
date_added	2026-06-19
author	Matt Pocock
license	MIT
license_source	https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/LICENSE
tags	["engineering","workflow","coding-agents"]
tools	["claude-code","codex-cli","cursor"]

Triage

When to Use

Use when this workflow matches the user request: Move issues and external PRs through a state machine of triage roles — categorise, verify, grill if needed, and write agent-ready briefs.

Source: mattpocock/skills (MIT).

Move issues on the project issue tracker through a small state machine of triage roles.

If this repo treats external pull requests as a request surface (see the issue-tracker config), triage covers them too: a PR is an issue with attached code — same roles, same states, same machine, with a few deltas marked "for a PR" below. Resolve a bare #42 to an issue or PR per the tracker config.

Every comment or issue posted to the issue tracker during triage must start with this disclaimer:

> *This was generated by AI during triage.*

Reference docs

• AGENT-BRIEF.md — how to write durable agent briefs
• OUT-OF-SCOPE.md — how the .out-of-scope/ knowledge base works

Roles

Two category roles:

• bug — something is broken
• enhancement — new feature or improvement

Five state roles:

• needs-triage — maintainer needs to evaluate
• needs-info — waiting on reporter for more information
• ready-for-agent — fully specified, ready for an AFK agent
• ready-for-human — needs human implementation
• wontfix — will not be actioned

For a PR, the same states read against the attached code: ready-for-agent means a brief is attached and an agent should take the next step on the diff; ready-for-human means it's ready for a human to merge.

Every triaged issue should carry exactly one category role and one state role. If state roles conflict, flag it and ask the maintainer before doing anything else.

These are canonical role names — the actual label strings used in the issue tracker may differ. The mapping should have been provided to you - run /setup-matt-pocock-skills if not.

State transitions: an unlabeled issue normally goes to needs-triage first; from there it moves to needs-info, , , or . returns to once the reporter replies. The maintainer can override at any time — flag transitions that look unusual and ask before proceeding.