issue-triage

name	issue-triage
description	Triage one GitHub issue — read it against the codebase, set every field, rewrite the description, link parent and sub-issues, post a justification comment, and promote Backlog to Ready. Use whenever an issue is filed, when an agent files one itself, or when an existing issue's shaping looks stale and needs re-deriving.

Triage an issue

Backlog → Ready is the AI triage gate. Promoting an issue asserts that an agent read it and shaped it, and it is what makes the board safe for anyone to pick from unattended. Treat it as judgement, not form-filling.

Guardrails

1. Never invent a criterion to make an issue look shaped. "This needs a product decision before it can be scoped" is a successful triage. A fabricated acceptance criterion is a trap set for whoever picks it up.
2. Read the code, not just the title. A Ready issue that was never checked against the repo is worse than a Backlog one, because now something claims it was checked.

Procedure

1. Read the issue and the surfaces it touches on current main. Ask first whether it should exist at all — a duplicate, or work the product no longer wants, is closed as Done + Reject with a reason, not promoted.
2. Decide whether it is one thing. Compound issues get split; sub-issues you create are triaged as you create them and land directly in Ready.
3. Set every field: Type, Effort, Priority, Milestone, and one of AUTO / HITL. Effort and Priority are native org issue fields, invisible to gh project item-list — see the reference.
4. Rewrite the description to state the problem and acceptance criteria. For Effort: Low, write the verification and validation criteria inline — the executor should never invent its own.
5. Link relationships: parent, sub-issues, dependencies, anything it duplicates or supersedes.
6. Post a justification comment — a few sentences on why this is worth doing, why now, and why the fields are what they are.
7. Promote to Ready, then read back every field you set.

Re-triage

Re-derive from scratch rather than rubber-stamping. Say what changed and why — that trail is often worth more than the shaping itself.

Field mechanics and the promotion bar: reference-triage-bar.md.