Triage

Triage

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

If this repo treats external pull requests as a request surface (see the issue-tracker config), triage covers them too: a PR is an issue with attached code — same roles, same states, same machine, with a few deltas marked "for a PR" below. Resolve a bare #42 to an issue or PR per the tracker config.

Every comment or issue posted to the issue tracker during triage must start with this disclaimer:

> *This was generated by AI during triage.*

Reference docs

• AGENT-BRIEF.md — how to write durable agent briefs
• OUT-OF-SCOPE.md — how the .out-of-scope/ knowledge base works

Roles

Two category roles:

• bug — something is broken
• enhancement — new feature or improvement

Six state roles:

• needs-triage — maintainer needs to evaluate
• needs-info — waiting on reporter for more information
• ready-for-agent — fully specified, ready for an AFK agent
• ready-for-human — needs human implementation
• paused — fully specified, but can't start until a prerequisite issue closes
• wontfix — will not be actioned

For a PR, the same states read against the attached code: ready-for-agent means a brief is attached and an agent should take the next step on the diff; ready-for-human means it's ready for a human to merge.

Every triaged issue should carry exactly one category role and one state role. If state roles conflict, flag it and ask the maintainer before doing anything else.

These are canonical role names — the actual label strings used in the issue tracker may differ. The mapping should have been provided to you - run /setup-matt-pocock-skills if not.

State transitions: an unlabeled issue normally goes to needs-triage first; from there it moves to needs-info, ready-for-agent, ready-for-human, or wontfix. needs-info returns to needs-triage once the reporter replies. A ready-for-agent or ready-for-human issue moves to paused when a prerequisite blocks it, and back to its ready role once the blockers close. The maintainer can override at any time — flag transitions that look unusual and ask before proceeding.

Invocation

The maintainer invokes /triage and describes what they want in natural language. Interpret the request and act. Examples:

• "Show me anything that needs my attention"
• "Let's look at #42" (issue or PR)
• "Move #42 to ready-for-agent"
• "Pause #42 until #40 lands"
• "What's ready for agents to pick up?"

Show what needs attention

Query the issue tracker and present four buckets, oldest first:

1. Unlabeled — never triaged. 2. `needs-triage` — evaluation in progress. 3. `needs-info` with reporter activity since the last triage notes — needs re-evaluation. 4. `paused` whose blockers have since closed — ready to promote back to a ready role. Issues still waiting on open blockers stay out of the list.

When PRs are in scope, include external PRs in these buckets and tag each line [PR] or [issue]. Discovery surfaces only external PRs (the tracker config defines who counts as external) — a collaborator's in-flight PR is not triage work. This filter is discovery-only; an explicitly named PR is always triaged regardless of author.

Show counts and a one-line summary per item. Let the maintainer pick.

Triage a specific issue or PR

1. Gather context. Read the full issue or PR (body, comments, labels, author, dates; for a PR, the diff too). Parse any prior triage notes so you don't re-ask resolved questions. Explore the codebase using the project's domain glossary; respect accepted ADRs in the area you're touching; treat proposed ADRs as planning context only when they belong to the current work. Run two checks against the codebase: (a) redundancy — search for an existing implementation of the requested behavior by domain concept (not just the request's wording), and report where you looked. If found, it's an already-implemented wontfix (step 5). (b) prior rejection — read .out-of-scope/*.md and surface any that resembles this request.

2. Recommend. Tell the maintainer your category and state recommendation with reasoning, plus a brief codebase summary relevant to the request — including whether it's already implemented. Wait for direction.

3. Verify the claim. Before any grilling, check that the claim holds up. For a bug, reproduce it from the reporter's steps. For a PR, confirm the diff does what it claims — check it out, run the relevant tests or commands. Report what happened: confirmed (with code path), failed, or insufficient detail (a strong needs-info signal). A confirmed verification makes a much stronger agent brief.

4. Grill (if needed). If the request needs fleshing out, run a /grill-with-docs session — grill it into shape one question at a time, sharpening domain terms and updating CONTEXT.md/ADRs inline as decisions land.

5. Apply the outcome:

• ready-for-agent — post an agent brief comment (AGENT-BRIEF.md).
• ready-for-human — same structure as an agent brief, but note why it can't be delegated (judgment calls, external access, design decisions, manual testing).
• paused — keep the brief, and note the blocking issue(s) in a comment so the blocker can be detected as closed later.
• needs-info — post triage notes (template below).
• wontfix — close, with the comment depending on why:
• Already implemented — the change already exists in the codebase. Point to where it lives; do not write to .out-of-scope/ (that KB is for rejected requests, not built ones).
• Rejected (bug) — polite explanation, then close.
• Rejected (enhancement) — write to .out-of-scope/, link to it from a comment, then close (OUT-OF-SCOPE.md).
• needs-triage — apply the role. Optional comment if there's partial progress.

Quick state override

If the maintainer says "move #42 to ready-for-agent", trust them and apply the role directly. Confirm what you're about to do (role changes, comment, close), then act. Skip grilling. If moving to ready-for-agent without a grilling session, ask whether they want to write an agent brief.

Needs-info template

## Triage Notes

**What we've established so far:**

- point 1
- point 2

**What we still need from you (@reporter):**

- question 1
- question 2

Capture everything resolved during grilling under "established so far" so the work isn't lost. Questions must be specific and actionable, not "please provide more info".

Resuming a previous session

If prior triage notes exist on the issue or PR, read them, check whether the reporter has answered any outstanding questions, and present an updated picture before continuing. Don't re-ask resolved questions.

Writing Agent Briefs

An agent brief is a structured comment posted on a GitHub issue or PR when it moves to ready-for-agent. It is the authoritative specification that an AFK agent will work from. The original body and discussion are context — the agent brief is the contract.

The brief states what the agent should do, which stretches to both surfaces: for an issue, that's building the change from nothing; for a PR, it's what's left to do to the existing diff — finish it, close gaps, address review points. Same principles either way; the PR example below shows the difference.

Principles

Durability over precision

The issue may sit in ready-for-agent for days or weeks. The codebase will change in the meantime. Write the brief so it stays useful even as files are renamed, moved, or refactored.

• Do describe interfaces, types, and behavioral contracts
• Do name specific types, function signatures, or config shapes that the agent should look for or modify
• Don't reference file paths — they go stale
• Don't reference line numbers
• Don't assume the current implementation structure will remain the same

Behavioral, not procedural

Describe what the system should do, not how to implement it. The agent will explore the codebase fresh and make its own implementation decisions.

• Good: "The SkillConfig type should accept an optional schedule field of type CronExpression"
• Bad: "Open src/types/skill.ts and add a schedule field on line 42"
• Good: "When a user runs /triage with no arguments, they should see a summary of issues needing attention"
• Bad: "Add a switch statement in the main handler function"

Complete acceptance criteria

The agent needs to know when it's done. Every agent brief must have concrete, testable acceptance criteria. Each criterion should be independently verifiable.

• Good: "Running gh issue list --label needs-triage returns issues that have been through initial classification"
• Bad: "Triage should work correctly"

Explicit scope boundaries

State what is out of scope. This prevents the agent from gold-plating or making assumptions about adjacent features.

Template

## Agent Brief

**Category:** bug / enhancement
**Summary:** one-line description of what needs to happen

**Current behavior:**
Describe what happens now. For bugs, this is the broken behavior.
For enhancements, this is the status quo the feature builds on.

**Desired behavior:**
Describe what should happen after the agent's work is complete.
Be specific about edge cases and error conditions.

**Key interfaces:**
- `TypeName` — what needs to change and why
- `functionName()` return type — what it currently returns vs what it should return
- Config shape — any new configuration options needed

**Acceptance criteria:**
- [ ] Specific, testable criterion 1
- [ ] Specific, testable criterion 2
- [ ] Specific, testable criterion 3

**Out of scope:**
- Thing that should NOT be changed or addressed in this issue
- Adjacent feature that might seem related but is separate

Examples

Good agent brief (bug)

## Agent Brief

**Category:** bug
**Summary:** Skill description truncation drops mid-word, producing broken output

**Current behavior:**
When a skill description exceeds 1024 characters, it is truncated at exactly
1024 characters regardless of word boundaries. This produces descriptions
that end mid-word (e.g. "Use when the user wants to confi").

**Desired behavior:**
Truncation should break at the last word boundary before 1024 characters
and append "..." to indicate truncation.

**Key interfaces:**
- The `SkillMetadata` type's `description` field — no type change needed,
  but the validation/processing logic that populates it needs to respect
  word boundaries
- Any function that reads SKILL.md frontmatter and extracts the description

**Acceptance criteria:**
- [ ] Descriptions under 1024 chars are unchanged
- [ ] Descriptions over 1024 chars are truncated at the last word boundary
      before 1024 chars
- [ ] Truncated descriptions end with "..."
- [ ] The total length including "..." does not exceed 1024 chars

**Out of scope:**
- Changing the 1024 char limit itself
- Multi-line description support

Good agent brief (enhancement)

## Agent Brief

**Category:** enhancement
**Summary:** Add `.out-of-scope/` directory support for tracking rejected feature requests

**Current behavior:**
When a feature request is rejected, the issue is closed with a `wontfix` label
and a comment. There is no persistent record of the decision or reasoning.
Future similar requests require the maintainer to recall or search for the
prior discussion.

**Desired behavior:**
Rejected feature requests should be documented in `.out-of-scope/<concept>.md`
files that capture the decision, reasoning, and links to all issues that
requested the feature. When triaging new issues, these files should be
checked for matches.

**Key interfaces:**
- Markdown file format in `.out-of-scope/` — each file should have a
  `# Concept Name` heading, a `**Decision:**` line, a `**Reason:**` line,
  and a `**Prior requests:**` list with issue links
- The triage workflow should read all `.out-of-scope/*.md` files early
  and match incoming issues against them by concept similarity

**Acceptance criteria:**
- [ ] Closing a feature as wontfix creates/updates a file in `.out-of-scope/`
- [ ] The file includes the decision, reasoning, and link to the closed issue
- [ ] If a matching `.out-of-scope/` file already exists, the new issue is
      appended to its "Prior requests" list rather than creating a duplicate
- [ ] During triage, existing `.out-of-scope/` files are checked and surfaced
      when a new issue matches a prior rejection

**Out of scope:**
- Automated matching (human confirms the match)
- Reopening previously rejected features
- Bug reports (only enhancement rejections go to `.out-of-scope/`)

Good agent brief (PR)

For a PR, "Current behavior" describes the state of the diff, and the brief asks the agent to finish or fix it rather than build from scratch.

## Agent Brief

**Category:** enhancement
**Summary:** Finish the contributor's `--json` output flag for `triage list`

**Current behavior:**
The PR adds a `--json` flag that serializes the issue list to JSON. The happy
path works and the diff matches the project's command structure. Two gaps
remain: errors are still printed as human text (not JSON), and the new flag has
no test coverage.

**Desired behavior:**
With `--json`, all output — including errors — is well-formed JSON on stdout,
and the command's exit codes are unchanged. The existing human-readable output
is untouched when the flag is absent.

**Key interfaces:**
- The command's error path should emit `{ "error": string }` under `--json`
  instead of the plain-text error
- Reuse the existing serializer the PR already added; don't introduce a second

**Acceptance criteria:**
- [ ] `triage list --json` emits valid JSON for both success and error cases
- [ ] Exit codes match the non-JSON command
- [ ] A test covers the `--json` success output and one error case
- [ ] Default (non-JSON) output is byte-for-byte unchanged

**Out of scope:**
- Adding `--json` to any other command
- Changing the JSON shape of the success payload the PR already defined

Bad agent brief

## Agent Brief

**Summary:** Fix the triage bug

**What to do:**
The triage thing is broken. Look at the main file and fix it.
The function around line 150 has the issue.

**Files to change:**
- src/triage/handler.ts (line 150)
- src/types.ts (line 42)

This is bad because:

• No category
• Vague description ("the triage thing is broken")
• References file paths and line numbers that will go stale
• No acceptance criteria
• No scope boundaries
• No description of current vs desired behavior

Out-of-Scope Knowledge Base

The .out-of-scope/ directory in a repo stores persistent records of rejected feature requests. It serves two purposes:

1. Institutional memory — why a feature was rejected, so the reasoning isn't lost when the issue is closed 2. Deduplication — when a new issue comes in that matches a prior rejection, the skill can surface the previous decision instead of re-litigating it

Directory structure

.out-of-scope/
├── dark-mode.md
├── plugin-system.md
└── graphql-api.md

One file per concept, not per issue. Multiple issues requesting the same thing are grouped under one file.

File format

The file should be written in a relaxed, readable style — more like a short design document than a database entry. Use paragraphs, code samples, and examples to make the reasoning clear and useful to someone encountering it for the first time.

# Dark Mode

This project does not support dark mode or user-facing theming.

## Why this is out of scope

The rendering pipeline assumes a single color palette defined in
`ThemeConfig`. Supporting multiple themes would require:

- A theme context provider wrapping the entire component tree
- Per-component theme-aware style resolution
- A persistence layer for user theme preferences

This is a significant architectural change that doesn't align with the
project's focus on content authoring. Theming is a concern for downstream
consumers who embed or redistribute the output.

// The current ThemeConfig interface is not designed for runtime switching: interface ThemeConfig { colors: ColorPalette; // single palette, resolved at build time fonts: FontStack; }

## Prior requests

- #42 — "Add dark mode support"
- #87 — "Night theme for accessibility"
- #134 — "Dark theme option"

Naming the file

Use a short, descriptive kebab-case name for the concept: dark-mode.md, plugin-system.md, graphql-api.md. The name should be recognizable enough that someone browsing the directory understands what was rejected without opening the file.

Writing the reason

The reason should be substantive — not "we don't want this" but why. Good reasons reference:

• Project scope or philosophy ("This project focuses on X; theming is a downstream concern")
• Technical constraints ("Supporting this would require Y, which conflicts with our Z architecture")
• Strategic decisions ("We chose to use A instead of B because...")

The reason should be durable. Avoid referencing temporary circumstances ("we're too busy right now") — those aren't real rejections, they're deferrals.

When to check .out-of-scope/

During triage (Step 1: Gather context), read all files in .out-of-scope/. When evaluating a new issue:

• Check if the request matches an existing out-of-scope concept
• Matching is by concept similarity, not keyword — "night theme" matches dark-mode.md
• If there's a match, surface it to the maintainer: "This is similar to .out-of-scope/dark-mode.md — we rejected this before because [reason]. Do you still feel the same way?"

The maintainer may:

• Confirm — the new issue gets added to the existing file's "Prior requests" list, then closed
• Reconsider — the out-of-scope file gets deleted or updated, and the issue proceeds through normal triage
• Disagree — the issues are related but distinct, proceed with normal triage

When to write to .out-of-scope/

Only when an enhancement (not a bug) is rejected as wontfix. This applies to enhancement PRs exactly as it does to issues — a rejected PR is recorded here so the same request doesn't return as fresh code.

Do not write here when something is closed as wontfix because it's already implemented. That's a built feature, not a rejected one; recording it would poison the dedup checks with false rejections. Instead, the closing comment points to where the feature already lives.

The flow:

1. Maintainer decides a feature request is out of scope 2. Check if a matching .out-of-scope/ file already exists 3. If yes: append the new issue to the "Prior requests" list 4. If no: create a new file with the concept name, decision, reason, and first prior request 5. Post a comment on the issue explaining the decision and mentioning the .out-of-scope/ file 6. Close the issue with the wontfix label

Updating or removing out-of-scope files

If the maintainer changes their mind about a previously rejected concept:

• Delete the .out-of-scope/ file
• The skill does not need to reopen old issues — they're historical records
• The new issue that triggered the reconsideration proceeds through normal triage