github-health-issues

name	github-health-issues
description	Audit GitHub issues: backlog size, label hygiene, milestones, stale issues, duplicates, missing prioritization, and bug-report quality. Triggers on `/github-health issues <repo>` and requests like "review the backlog", "are issues being triaged", or "what issues are stale". Read-only; never closes issues without explicit approval.

github-health-issues

When to trigger

• /github-health issues <repo>
• Requests about backlog hygiene, triage, stale issues, label or milestone usage.

Required inputs

• GitHub repository URL.
• Optional: a label or milestone to focus on.
• Optional: stale threshold in days (default: 90).

Reference files

• github-health/references/github-health-checklist.md — Section 5.
• github-health/references/scoring-model.md
• github-health/references/severity-model.md
• github-health/references/output-contract.md
• github-health/references/safety-rules.md
• github-health/references/collection-guide.md

Procedure

1. List open issues with labels, milestones, and assignees.
2. List the label set; flag missing standard labels (e.g., bug, enhancement, security, good first issue).
3. List milestones; flag stale or empty milestones.
4. Detect issues:
   • Without labels.
   • Without milestones (where milestones are used).
   • With label bug but missing reproduction steps in body.
   • With label security filed publicly that should likely be private.
   • Stale (no activity > threshold).
   • Duplicate candidates (heuristic: similar titles).
5. Score the Issues area (part of the documentation/process bucket — weight 10 split with docs) per scoring-model.md.
6. Render a report focused on Issues.

Evidence to collect

gh issue list --state open --limit 500 --json number,title,labels,milestone,assignees,createdAt,updatedAt,body
gh label list
gh api repos/<owner>/<repo>/milestones --jq '.[] | {title,state,due_on}'

Red flags

• [HIGH] Issue labeled security filed publicly with sensitive details that should be private.
• [HIGH] Many critical bug issues without assignees.
• [MEDIUM] More than 50% of open issues have no label.
• [MEDIUM] Stale issues > 50% of total open.
• [MEDIUM] Milestones unused or stale (no due date, no progress).
• [LOW] Inconsistent label naming (bug vs Bug vs type:bug).
• [LOW] Duplicate-candidate clusters detected.
• [INFO] Backlog grows faster than it closes over the audit window.

Output format

Use the standard contract. Populate Detailed Findings → Issues in depth. Provide grouped sub-tables when many issues share an attribute (e.g., "Issues missing labels", "Stale issues", "Bug issues without repro").

Safety rules

• Never close, re-open, label, or comment on issues from this skill.
• Recommendations to close stale issues are listed under Approval Required Before Destructive Actions with a rationale and a recovery note ("issues can be re-opened from the GitHub UI").
• Public security issues get a special note: do not suggest re-publishing the content; instead recommend the user move the report to the repository's private vulnerability reporting channel.

When to escalate

• If you find evidence of leaked secrets in issue bodies, escalate to github-health-secret-scanning and treat as a BLOCKER.
• If the backlog appears to drive the roadmap and Linear is in use, escalate to github-health-linear.

What not to do

• Do not recommend "close all stale issues" as a blanket policy. Stale is not synonymous with invalid.
• Do not include personal emails or phone numbers from issue bodies in the report.