issue-triage-live

Issue Triage (Live)

An untriaged backlog is a pile no one trusts. In Claude Cowork this skill reads the real open issues, classifies each, applies the safe labels and priorities in place, and hands back a report — turning a heap into a queue, while leaving the judgement calls to a human.

What This Skill Produces

• The triaged backlog — each open issue typed (bug / feature / question / duplicate), severity-tagged, and prioritised
• Applied changes — labels and priority set via the connector; duplicates linked to their canonical issue
• A triage-report artifact — what was applied, the duplicate clusters, and the issues that need a human decision

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The repo/project — which GitHub repo or Linear team, and the filter (all open, untriaged only)
• The label & priority scheme — existing labels and what P0–P3 mean here
• Autonomy — apply labels/priority automatically, or preview first (default: apply labels, preview closes/merges)

Framework: The Triage Pass

1. Type it — bug / feature / question / duplicate / needs-info.
2. Severity for bugs — blocking / major / minor, from impact and reproducibility.
3. Priority — severity × reach × strategic pull → P0–P3.
4. Dedupe — cluster near-identical issues; pick the canonical, link the rest.
5. Needs-info — issues too thin to action get the label and a templated ask.

Execution (Cowork)

1. Read issues — via the GitHub/Linear connector, list open issues in scope with bodies and existing labels.
2. Classify — apply type, severity, priority using the project's scheme; detect duplicates by title/body similarity, not exact match.
3. Apply the safe changes — set labels and priority through the connector; add a needs-info comment where required; link duplicates to the canonical issue. Do not close issues automatically.
4. Escalate — anything ambiguous, strategic, or close-worthy is listed for the human, not actioned.
5. Emit the artifact — the triage report with applied changes, duplicate clusters, and the human queue.

Guardrails: never auto-close issues (only propose); apply only labels/priority/links automatically; use the project's real label scheme, not invented labels; if the connector is unauthorised, produce the triage plan without applying and say so.

Output Format

An Issue Triage Report:

Summary

N open · B bugs · F features · Q questions · D duplicate clusters · applied to M

Applied

| Issue | Type | Severity | Priority | Labels added |

|---|---|---|---|---|

Duplicate clusters

• canonical #X ← #Y, #Z

Needs a human

• #N — why (close-worthy / strategic / ambiguous)

Quality Checks

• [ ] No issue was auto-closed
• [ ] Labels/priorities use the project's real scheme
• [ ] Duplicate clusters name a canonical issue and link the rest
• [ ] Priority reflects severity × reach, not gut feel
• [ ] Ambiguous/strategic issues were escalated, not force-labelled

Anti-Patterns

• Auto-closing issues — propose, don't close.
• Inventing labels the project doesn't use.
• Exact-match dedupe that misses reworded duplicates.
• Labelling a thin issue P2 instead of asking for repro/info.

Example Trigger Phrases

• "Triage my open GitHub issues in Cowork."
• "Label and prioritise the backlog, and cluster the duplicates."
• "Sort my Linear issues — types, severity, priority."
• "Clean up the issue tracker and flag what needs me."