| name | maestro:groom |
| description | Groom a single GitHub issue — produce an implementation spec and optionally post the grooming summary as a GitHub comment. Standalone entry point for the grooming-agent. |
| argument-hint | <issue-number> |
Groom
Standalone grooming for a single issue. Runs the full grooming analysis and writes the spec
to disk. Posting to GitHub is your choice — you are prompted at the end.
Step 1 — Read config
Read .claude/maestro.json. Extract:
TEMP_ROOT = .ai.temp_root
REPO = .ai.repo
Step 2 — Sync the issue
Ensure the issue file exists at {TEMP_ROOT}/issues/<N>/issue.md. Run:
bash .claude/skills/issue-workflow/scripts/issue-sync.sh <N>
If the file already exists and git status shows it is less than 5 minutes old, skip the
sync and use the cached file.
Step 3 — Invoke the grooming agent
Invoke the grooming-agent sub-agent with the following invocation context:
Issue number: <N>
complexity_signal: derive from the issue content yourself
STANDALONE MODE — two differences from the normal pipeline run:
- Skip Step 5 (posting to GitHub). Instead, include the full comment body you would
have posted in a section titled
## Grooming Comment Draft at the end of your response.
Use exactly the same format the pipeline would post (including the
<!-- ai-pipeline:grooming-plan --> marker), so it is ready to copy-paste or post as-is.
- Skip Step 6 (StructuredOutput JSON). Return a short human-readable summary instead:
effort, risk, complexity, and any open questions.
The spec file is still written to {TEMP_ROOT}/issues/<N>/spec.md as normal — that always happens.
Step 4 — Offer to post
After the agent responds, display its ## Grooming Comment Draft to the user, then ask:
Post this as a comment on issue #<N>?
Reply yes to post as-is, no to finish without posting, or paste edited text to post a
modified version.
If yes — post using the exact body from the draft (including the HTML marker):
gh issue comment <N> --repo {REPO} --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
<!-- ai-pipeline:grooming-plan -->
[comment body here]
EOF
)"
Check for an existing grooming comment first (dedup):
EXISTING_ID=$(gh api repos/{REPO}/issues/<N>/comments \
--jq '[.[] | select(.body | contains("<!-- ai-pipeline:grooming-plan -->"))] | last | .id // empty')
If one exists, update it with PATCH instead of creating a new comment.
If no — confirm the spec was written to {TEMP_ROOT}/issues/<N>/spec.md and finish.
If edited — use the user-provided text as the comment body and post.