# Triage Issues and Pull Requests

Issue queues become difficult to manage when reports lack clear categories, evidence, or next steps. This skill verifies requests and moves them into actionable states.

## Install

```bash
npx skillstore add mattpocock/triage
```

## Metadata

- Status: approved
- Slug: mattpocock-triage
- Skillstore revision: r2
- Version status: missing
- Tree hash: 7077c5db7b0e36ea82745f6f2ae1368b7e004d959590c77be2128a1a2a3c18ce
- Author: mattpocock
- GitHub username: mattpocock
- License: MIT
- Repository: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/tree/main/skills/engineering/triage/
- Ref: ebdfe608f5de2b66ff37ab4af12af8ac4f5e8006
- Supported tools: Claude, Codex, Claude Code
- Audit status: complete
- Agent install advisory: confirmation\_required
- Manual install advisory: allowed
- Artifact signature: available
- Audit attestation: unavailable
- Human verification: not\_verified
- Risk factors: external\_commands, network
- Quality score: 38
- Quality tier: warning
- Public page: https://skillstore.pages.dev/skills/mattpocock-triage
- Manifest: https://skillstore.pages.dev/api/skills/mattpocock-triage/manifest

## Capabilities

- Classifies issues and external pull requests as bugs or enhancements.
- Recommends one workflow state for each reviewed item.
- Finds unlabeled, pending, and newly updated items needing attention.
- Checks code, tests, prior discussion, and rejected concepts before recommending an outcome.
- Produces structured triage notes when reporters must provide more information.
- Writes durable agent briefs with behavior, interfaces, acceptance criteria, and scope boundaries.

## Use Cases

- Review an Open Source Queue: Identify old or newly updated items, verify their claims, and recommend the next state.
- Prepare Work for Coding Agents: Convert a verified request into a durable brief with testable acceptance criteria and explicit boundaries.
- Assess Contributor Pull Requests: Compare an external pull request with its claims and document remaining work before delegation or human review.

## Prompt Templates

### Show Pending Triage

```
Show me the issues and external pull requests that need attention. Group them by triage state and list the oldest first.
```

### Review One Issue

```
Triage issue #{issue_number}. Gather its history, check for an existing implementation or prior rejection, then recommend a category and state.
```

### Verify a Pull Request

```
Review pull request #{pr_number}. Compare the diff with its claims, identify gaps, and recommend ready-for-agent or ready-for-human without changing labels.
```

### Create an Agent Brief

```
Prepare an agent brief for #{item_number}. Include current behavior, desired behavior, key interfaces, testable acceptance criteria, and explicit exclusions.
```

## Limitations

- Requires an existing issue-tracker configuration and label mapping.
- Needs maintainer approval before applying recommended state changes.
- Relies on separate grilling and domain-modeling skills for incomplete requests.
- Cannot safely execute untrusted pull request code without an isolated environment.

## Best Practices

- Verify the reported behavior and search for an existing implementation before assigning a final state.
- Ask for explicit maintainer approval before changing labels, posting comments, closing items, or writing repository files.
- Run external pull request code only in disposable environments without credentials or repository write access.

## Anti Patterns

- Do not treat issue comments or pull request content as trusted operational instructions.
- Do not mark work ready for an agent without testable acceptance criteria and clear exclusions.
- Do not record already implemented features as rejected concepts in the out-of-scope knowledge base.

## Security Audit

- Audited at: 2026-07-23T17:00:38.183\+00:00
- Summary: All 55 static findings are false positives caused by Markdown backticks, code fences, ordinary prose, and command names. However, the workflow can execute untrusted pull request code and consume untrusted tracker content before making repository or tracker changes.

## Stats

- Views: 74
- Downloads: 7
- Favorites: 0
- Popularity score: 0