The /triage Skill

Matt Pocock released a new AI skill called /triage that automates issue triage on project trackers by categorizing issues, verifying claims, and moving them through a state machine. The skill requires prior setup of a tracker and label mapping, and it waits for user direction before acting. It aims to keep the issue queue sorted and produce verified briefs for agents or humans.

The /triage Skill Quickstart: npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill=triage npx skills update triage What it does what-it-does triage moves issues on your project's tracker through a small state machine of triage roles — categorise them, verify the claim, grill them into shape if needed, and leave a ready-for-agent brief. It never labels blind. Every triaged item carries exactly one category role bug / enhancement and one state role needs-triage , needs-info , ready-for-agent , ready-for-human , wontfix , and it recommends and waits — it tells you its category and state call with reasoning, then acts only on your direction. Before anything is promoted to ready-for-agent , it verifies the claim first: a bug gets reproduced, a PR gets checked out and run. When to reach for it when-to-reach-for-it You invoke this by typing /triage and describing what you want in natural language — the agent won't reach for it on its own. "Show me anything that needs my attention", "let's look at 42", "move 42 to ready-for-agent". Reach for it when your issue tracker has raw, unevaluated reports and you want them sorted, verified, and turned into work an agent or human can pick up. To turn a settled conversation into a fresh spec instead, use to-spec https://aihero.dev/skills-to-spec ; to split an existing spec into tickets, use to-tickets https://aihero.dev/skills-to-tickets . triage is the reverse direction — it processes what's already landed in the tracker. Prerequisites prerequisites triage reads and writes your issue tracker, so setup-matt-pocock-skills https://aihero.dev/skills-setup-matt-pocock-skills must have configured the tracker and the label mapping first. The role names above are canonical — the actual label strings in your tracker may differ, and that mapping is what setup provides. The config also decides whether external PRs count as a request surface, and who counts as external. A PR is an issue with attached code a-pr-is-an-issue-with-attached-code Where the tracker treats external pull requests as a request surface, triage runs them through the same machine: same category roles, same states, same transitions — the states just read against the diff instead of a report. ready-for-agent means a brief is attached and an agent should take the next step on the code; ready-for-human means it's ready to merge. Discovery surfaces only external PRs, but an explicitly named PR is always triaged regardless of author. Verify before you brief verify-before-you-brief The step that separates triage from ad-hoc labelling is verification. It reproduces the bug from the reporter's steps, or checks out the PR and runs the tests, and reports back: confirmed with a code path, failed, or insufficient detail which is itself a strong needs-info signal . It also runs two codebase checks — redundancy is this already implemented? then it's a wontfix and prior rejection does .out-of-scope/ already say no? . A confirmed verification makes a far stronger agent brief; guessing does not. It's working if its-working-if - Every item it touches ends with exactly one category role and one state role — never zero, never two conflicting states. - It hands you a recommendation with reasoning and waits, rather than relabelling on its own. - Bugs get reproduced and PRs get run before anything reaches ready-for-agent . - Every comment it posts to the tracker opens with the This was generated by AI during triage. disclaimer. Where it fits where-it-fits triage is the periodic maintenance pass over your issue tracker — run it whenever reports pile up, to keep the queue sorted and the ready-for-agent column trustworthy. It sits at the front of the tracker, upstream of the build chain: the briefs it writes are what tdd https://aihero.dev/skills-tdd later picks up to implement. When a request needs sharpening it leans on grilling https://aihero.dev/skills-grilling and domain-modeling https://aihero.dev/skills-domain-modeling to grill it into shape one question at a time. Its close neighbour is to-spec https://aihero.dev/skills-to-spec , which populates the tracker from a fresh conversation where triage processes what's already there. When you're unsure which skill or flow fits, ask-matt https://aihero.dev/skills-ask-matt routes you. Join over 70,000 Developers Becoming AI Heroes Engineering fundamentals are your biggest advantage. Learn how to leverage them and leave vibe coding behind. I respect your privacy. Unsubscribe at any time. Share