gh-assign-issues

# gh-assign-issues Retarget or assign a set of Codewhale issues to a milestone and/or owners in bulk, verifying every one. The milestone (or assignee) change is the signal; do not narrate it with comments. Use `gh` for all GitHub calls. ## When to use - You have a concrete list of issue numbers (e.g. from triage) to move into a release milestone such as the current `vX.Y.Z`, or to assign to owners. - A milestone was renamed/created and its issues need re-pointing. - You finished grouping the inbox and want the queue to reflect it without posting public chatter. This skill changes milestone/assignee only. It does not close, label, comment, merge, or release. Those stay with the maintainer. ## Workflow 1. Confirm the exact milestone title. `gh issue edit --milestone` matches by name, so a typo silently fails (or worse, no-ops). Read the real titles and note the starting open-count: ```bash gh api repos/Hmbown/CodeWhale/milestones \ --jq '.[] | "\(.number)\t\(.title)\topen=\(.open_issues)\tstate=\(.state)"' ``` Copy the title string verbatim (e.g. the live `vX.Y.Z` title). If the target milestone is missing or closed, stop and ask the maintainer; do not create one. 2. Pre-flight each number. `gh issue edit` will happily retarget a PR or a closed issue, so screen first. The `url` reveals PR-vs-issue (`/pull/` vs `/issues/`); skip anything not OPEN or that is a PR: ```bash for N in <N1> <N2> <N3>; do # substitute the real issue numbers gh issue view "$N" --repo Hmbown/CodeWhale \ --json number,state,url,milestone \ --jq '"\(.number)\t\(.state)\t\(.url)\tmilestone=\(.milestone.title // "none")"' done ``` Flag any row whose `url` contains `/pull/` (it is a PR) or whose state is not `OPEN`, and exclude it from the loop below. 3. Apply the change, one issue at a time, reporting per-issue success. Use `--milestone`, `--add-assignee`, or both: ```bash for N in <N1> <N2> <N3>; do # substitute the real issue numbers if gh issue edit "$N" --repo Hmbown/CodeWhale \ --milestone "<milestone>" >/dev/null 2>&1; then echo "ok #$N -> <milestone>" else echo "FAIL #$N (PR? closed? bad milestone title?)" fi done # owners: add --add-assignee handle (do not invent logins) ``` Edit is idempotent: re-pointing an already-correct issue is harmless. 4. Verify the milestone moved. Re-run the step-1 command and confirm the open count rose by the number of issues you moved in (minus any you skipped). Spot-check a few with the step-2 view to confirm `milestone.title` is now the target. 5. Report a tight ledger: issues moved, issues skipped and why (PR / closed / title mismatch), the before/after open-count, and any owner assignments. No public comment is posted. ## Red flags / don't - Don't edit from a list of titles alone. Resolve to OPEN issue numbers and confirm each is an issue, not a PR (`/pull/` in the url), before editing. - Don't guess the milestone title or assignee login. A near-miss name no-ops or fails silently; an invalid login errors mid-loop. - Don't post "moved to <milestone>" comments. The milestone change is the signal; extra chatter is noise to good-faith contributors. - Don't close, merge, label, tag, or release as part of this. Those need explicit maintainer approval (see AGENTS.md). - Don't skip step 4. An unmoved open-count means the title was wrong or every edit silently failed. - Preserve contributor credit: this skill never alters authorship, harvest markers (`Co-authored-by` / `Harvested from PR #N`), or closing references.