# triage

Move issues on the project issue tracker through a small state machine of triage roles.

## What it does

Gives issue triage an explicit state model and a fixed set of moves. Every issue carries exactly one **category** role (`bug`, `enhancement`) and one **state** role (`needs-triage`, `needs-info`, `ready-for-agent`, `ready-for-human`, `wontfix`); conflicting state roles are flagged to the maintainer before anything else happens. Unlabeled issues normally enter at `needs-triage`; `needs-info` returns there once the reporter replies. The maintainer can override at any point, and unusual transitions are questioned rather than executed silently.

A run does one of three things depending on what the maintainer asks for:

- **Show what needs attention** — three buckets, oldest first: unlabeled, `needs-triage`, and `needs-info` with reporter activity since the last triage notes.
- **Triage a specific issue** — gather context (including prior triage notes, so resolved questions are not re-asked, and `.out-of-scope/` records that resemble the issue), recommend a category and state with reasoning, attempt reproduction for bugs *before* any grilling, run a `grill-with-docs` session if the issue needs fleshing out, then apply the outcome.
- **Quick state override** — "move #42 to ready-for-agent" is trusted and applied directly, skipping grilling, after confirming the exact changes.

Two hard rules: every comment or issue the skill posts during triage must open with the AI-generated disclaimer, and the canonical role names above are *not* necessarily the label strings in the tracker — each is resolved against the tracker's live label set before it is applied, and a name with no counterpart there is reported to the maintainer as a gap rather than guessed at.

## Composition

`grill-with-docs` is invoked at step 4 when an issue needs fleshing out; whatever that session establishes is carried into the triage notes so the work is not lost. The reverse direction also exists: `diagnose` names this skill as the place to send a *reported* bug that needs filing rather than debugging.

## Usage

```text
/triage
```

Then describe what you want in natural language — "show me anything that needs my attention", "let's look at #42", "move #42 to ready-for-agent", "what's ready for agents to pick up?".

## Files

| File | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| `SKILL.md` | The roles and state machine, the three invocation modes, the needs-info template, and how to resume a prior session |
| `references/agent-brief.md` | Cited when an issue moves to `ready-for-agent` (and reused for `ready-for-human`): how to write a brief that stays durable for weeks while the codebase moves under it — describe interfaces and behavioural contracts, not line numbers |
| `references/out-of-scope.md` | Cited when an enhancement is closed `wontfix` and when checking for prior rejections: how the `.out-of-scope/` knowledge base is laid out and what it is for — institutional memory, and deduplication against re-litigated requests |