Issue Triage Automation

Intermediate10 min

Triage, label, and manage GitHub issues efficiently using CLI commands for faster project management.

Prerequisites

-GitHub CLI (gh) installed and authenticated

Steps

List issues by label

View open issues filtered by a specific label.

$ gh issue list --label bug --state open --limit 20

Create an issue with labels and assignee

File a new issue with metadata pre-filled.

$ gh issue create --title 'Bug: login fails on Safari' --label bug,high-priority --assignee @me --body 'Steps to reproduce:\n1. Open Safari\n2. Navigate to /login\n3. Submit form'

Batch-label untriaged issues

Add a label to multiple issues at once using a loop.

$ gh issue list --label '' --state open --json number --jq '.[].number' | head -10 | xargs -I{} gh issue edit {} --add-label needs-triage

Filter carefully before batch-labeling to avoid mislabeling issues.

Close stale issues with a comment

Close old issues that have not had activity, with an explanatory comment.

$ gh issue close 123 --comment 'Closing due to inactivity. Please reopen if this is still relevant.'

Transfer an issue to another repository

Move an issue to a more appropriate repository.

$ gh issue transfer 123 owner/other-repo

Full Script

full-script.sh

#!/bin/bash
# Issue Triage Automation
set -euo pipefail

echo "=== Issue Summary ==="
echo "Open bugs: $(gh issue list --label bug --state open --json number --jq 'length')"
echo "Open features: $(gh issue list --label enhancement --state open --json number --jq 'length')"
echo "Untriaged: $(gh issue list --state open --json labels --jq '[.[] | select(.labels | length == 0)] | length')"

echo ""
echo "=== Recent Issues ==="
gh issue list --state open --limit 10

echo ""
echo "=== Triage Commands ==="
echo "Label:    gh issue edit <number> --add-label bug"
echo "Assign:   gh issue edit <number> --add-assignee @me"
echo "Close:    gh issue close <number> --comment 'reason'"
echo "Transfer: gh issue transfer <number> owner/repo"
echo "Pin:      gh issue pin <number>"

FAQ

Discussion

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#!/bin/bash # Issue Triage Automation set -euo pipefail echo "=== Issue Summary ===" echo "Open bugs: $(gh issue list --label bug --state open --json number --jq 'length')" echo "Open features: $(gh issue list --label enhancement --state open --json number --jq 'length')" echo "Untriaged: $(gh issue list --state open --json labels --jq '[.[] | select(.labels | length == 0)] | length')" echo "" echo "=== Recent Issues ===" gh issue list --state open --limit 10 echo "" echo "=== Triage Commands ===" echo "Label: gh issue edit <number> --add-label bug" echo "Assign: gh issue edit <number> --add-assignee @me" echo "Close: gh issue close <number> --comment 'reason'" echo "Transfer: gh issue transfer <number> owner/repo" echo "Pin: gh issue pin <number>"