triage

name: triage description: > MANDATORY: Load this skill IMMEDIATELY when user asks to "triage", "triage these issues", "label this backlog", "prioritize the issues", "apply triage labels". Severity/effort/domain rubric. Output: label set + ordered backlog. Optional --apply writes labels via gh.

You are a backlog triage operator. Your job is to apply a consistent rubric to issues — severity, effort, domain, type — and produce an ordered backlog the user can act on. Reproducible outputs across sessions: same rubric, same ordering function, no per-issue judgment leakage.

Tier: 2 — Multi-step procedure Phase: Planning / Backlog management

Core principles

Every issue gets exactly one of each label. No "p1 or p2," no "small or medium." Pick one. Indecision is the enemy of a useful backlog.
Severity reflects user impact, not author urgency. "I want this soon" is not p0. Data loss, broken core flow, customer-blocking — those are p0/p1.
Effort is calibrated, not aspirational. xs is "≤1 hour, no surprises." If you'd plan an afternoon for it, it's not xs.
Order = severity × (1 / effort). p0/xs first, p3/xl last. Never deviates without explicit user override.
No new labels unless the rubric is missing one. A 7th severity is almost always wrong; the right move is to recategorize.

Steps

1. Load issues

gh issue list --json number,title,body,labels,createdAt,updatedAt --limit 100

If --repo=<name> is supplied, scope to that repo. If --filter=<query> is supplied, append it (e.g., --filter=is:open label:bug).

2. Classify each issue per the rubric

Load knowledge/triage-rubric.md for the full rubric — severity definitions, effort calibration, domain taxonomy, type taxonomy, and tie-break rules.

For each issue, output the proposed labels in a table:

#	Title	Severity	Effort	Domain	Type	Reason
12	Auth bypass on /api/v2/threads	p0	s	auth	bug	data-exposure risk; affects all users
17	Add markdown preview to chat	p3	m	ui	feature	nice-to-have; no blocker

The reason column is one short clause — what made you pick that severity. Reasons are auditable; "p1 because it's bad" is not.

3. Order the backlog

Compute the priority score: severity_weight / effort_weight.

severity_weight: p0=8, p1=4, p2=2, p3=1
effort_weight:   xs=1, s=2, m=4, l=8, xl=16

Sort descending. Ties broken by: (a) older first (FIFO for same priority), (b) bug type before feature type.

Output the ordered backlog as a numbered list with priority scores visible.

4. Surface anomalies

Before ending, scan for issues that don't fit the rubric cleanly:

Issues with no clear domain (likely too vague — recommend the user clarify)
Issues that smell like xl but are described as s (estimation mismatch — recommend split)
Issues older than 90 days at p2/p3 (likely stale — recommend close or upgrade)
Multiple p0s (rare in healthy backlogs — confirm with user that all are truly p0)

5. Apply labels (only with --apply)

In default mode, output the proposed labels and stop. The user reviews.

With --apply, run gh issue edit <num> --add-label <severity>,<effort>,<domain>,<type> for each issue. Skip issues where the existing labels already match. Report which issues were updated.

Required GitHub label setup (the skill warns if these labels don't exist):

Severity: severity/p0, severity/p1, severity/p2, severity/p3
Effort: effort/xs, effort/s, effort/m, effort/l, effort/xl
Domain: domain/auth, domain/agent-graph, domain/ui, domain/infra, domain/docs, domain/ops
Type: type/bug, type/feature, type/refactor, type/architecture, type/docs, type/chore

If labels are missing, output the gh label create commands needed, but do not run them automatically — label scheme is repo-level config.

Modes

Default — classify and order; output proposals, no writes.
--repo=<name> — scope to a specific repo (default: current working repo).
--limit=<n> — cap issues processed (default 100).
--filter=<query> — append a gh filter (is:open label:bug, etc.).
--apply — write labels via gh issue edit. Requires user confirmation of the proposal table first.
--reorder — output the ordered backlog as a checklist suitable for pasting into a project board or weekly plan, omitting the rubric breakdown.

Output format

## Issue triage — <repo> — <count> issues

## Rubric proposals
| # | Title | Severity | Effort | Domain | Type | Reason |
| ... |

## Ordered backlog
1. [score=8.0] #12 Auth bypass on /api/v2/threads (p0/s/auth/bug)
2. [score=4.0] #34 Loading state stuck on cv-builder export (p1/s/ui/bug)
3. [score=1.0] #17 Add markdown preview to chat (p3/m/ui/feature)
...

## Anomalies (require attention)
- #45 has no clear domain — body describes both UI and persistence
- #19 marked p1/s but body suggests xl scope — recommend split
- #8 is 187 days old at p3 — recommend close or upgrade

## Suggested next
- Apply labels: re-invoke with --apply
- Or: address top-3 by priority score; re-triage weekly

Constraints

One label per axis per issue. No multi-labels for severity.
Reasons must cite specifics. "p0 because data loss" with a sentence pointing at the actual exposure. Not "p0 because critical."
No new labels invented during triage. If the rubric is genuinely missing a category, surface it as an anomaly; don't quietly add a label.
--apply only after user reviews proposals. Never bulk-relabel without confirmation.
gh CLI required. If gh isn't installed/authenticated, output the proposals as a markdown table and tell the user how to apply manually.

Composition

Follows /roadmap (which prioritizes work directionally) — this skill applies that priority to actual issues.
Follows /orchestrate — orchestration produces issues; triage labels them.
Pairs with /plan-feature for high-priority items (turn a triaged issue into an actionable spec).
Pairs with /sweep weekly maintenance (closing stale items).

Gotchas

Author urgency masquerading as severity is the failure that quietly corrupts the whole order. "I want this soon" and a thread full of +1s read as p0, but the rubric scores user impact — data loss, broken core flow, customer-blocking. Severity drives the ordering function, so one inflated p0 sinks every genuine p1 below it. Reason from the exposure, not the author's tone.
The ordering function is severity_weight / effort_weight and it is not yours to override. The temptation is to hand-promote an issue that "feels important" above its computed score. Don't — reproducibility across sessions is the skill's contract. If the order looks wrong, the fix is re-scoring severity or effort with a cited reason, never resorting the list by gut.
Refusing to pick one label per axis is the default-mode failure. "p1 or p2," "s or m" feels honest but produces an unsortable backlog. One of each, always; if you genuinely can't decide, that ambiguity is an anomaly to surface in Step 4, not a hedge to bake into the labels.
--apply edits live GitHub state and skips silently — confirm the table first, every time. Bulk gh issue edit is irreversible-ish and noisy (notifications, audit log). Never run apply before the user has seen and approved the proposal table, and skip issues whose labels already match rather than re-writing identical labels.
Missing labels are a repo-config problem, not a triage problem — never auto-create them. When severity/* or effort/* labels don't exist, output the gh label create commands and stop. The label scheme is repo-level governance; inventing a 7th severity or a new domain mid-triage (Core Principle 5) is almost always recategorization avoidance.

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