GitHub Issues Manager

Complete GitHub issue management using the gh CLI tool. This Skill provides comprehensive capabilities for creating, viewing, updating, and managing GitHub issues.

Capabilities

1. Create issues - Create new GitHub issues with context from conversations
2. List issues - View and filter issues by state, labels, assignees
3. View issues - Display full issue details including comments
4. Update issues - Modify titles, bodies, labels, and assignees
5. Close issues - Close issues with optional closing comments
6. Assign issues - Assign issues to team members

Quick Reference

For detailed instructions on each operation, see:

• CREATE_ISSUE.md - Creating new issues
• LIST_ISSUES.md - Listing and filtering issues
• VIEW_ISSUE.md - Viewing issue details
• UPDATE_ISSUE.md - Updating existing issues
• CLOSE_ISSUE.md - Closing issues
• ASSIGN_ISSUE.md - Assigning issues to users

Common Workflows

Bug reporting workflow

1. User reports a bug in conversation
2. Create issue with /create-issue or ask me to create one
3. Issue is created with context from our discussion
4. Assign to appropriate team member
5. Add labels (bug, priority, etc.)

Issue triage workflow

1. List open issues with filters
2. View specific issues for details
3. Update labels and assignments
4. Close resolved issues with status updates

Sprint planning workflow

1. List issues by label or milestone
2. Assign issues to team members
3. Update priorities and estimates
4. Track progress through status updates

Critical Instructions

REQUIRED: Before executing ANY GitHub issue operations, you MUST load the relevant reference file(s) using the Read tool. These references contain essential command patterns, parameters, and workflows that are NOT included in this overview.

When the user asks to work with GitHub issues:

1. Identify the operation they want to perform (create, list, view, update, close, assign)
2. MANDATORY: Load the relevant reference file(s) using the Read tool BEFORE executing any commands:
   • Creating issues → Read CREATE_ISSUE.md FIRST
   • Listing issues → Read LIST_ISSUES.md FIRST
   • Viewing issues → Read VIEW_ISSUE.md FIRST
   • Updating issues → Read UPDATE_ISSUE.md FIRST
   • Closing issues → Read CLOSE_ISSUE.md FIRST
   • Assigning issues → Read ASSIGN_ISSUE.md FIRST
3. Execute the gh CLI commands following the exact patterns from the loaded reference
4. Use temporary files for issue bodies to avoid markdown conflicts (as specified in references)
5. Confirm actions and display results

DO NOT attempt to execute GitHub issue commands without first loading and reading the relevant reference documentation.

Best Practices

• Always use --body-file for issue bodies to avoid shell escaping issues
• Use $$ in temp file names to avoid conflicts (expands to process ID)
• Format issue bodies with proper markdown structure
• Include context from conversations when creating issues
• Clean up temp files after operations
• Display issue URLs so users can navigate to GitHub

Examples

Create an issue from context

User: "I found a bug where login fails with special characters"
Me: *Creates issue with details from conversation*

List and filter issues

User: "Show me all open bugs assigned to alice"
Me: gh issue list --state open --label bug --assignee alice

Update an issue

User: "Add high-priority label to issue #123"
Me: gh issue edit 123 --add-label "high-priority"

Close with context

User: "Close issue #456, it was fixed in the last PR"
Me: gh issue close 456 --comment "Fixed in PR #789"