oss-issue-triage skill (samber): design an issue triage system

Designs the issue and pull-request triage system for an open-source project, sized to the time maintainers really have.

Installs: 12.4K; on skills.sh
Stars: 7; on GitHub
Files: 8; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Nov 2026; last repo commit

oss-issue-triage designs the system that decides how a project's incoming issues and pull requests get handled, sized to the capacity maintainers actually have. It measures the queue first, does the capacity arithmetic, designs a label taxonomy, cuts intake with forms and routing, sets up a triage rota, gives pull requests their own gate order and writes the closing and staleness policy. It produces five artefacts, each validated with you before the next.

It triggers on "our issue tracker is out of control", "set up labels for our repo", "should we run a stale bot" or "triage rotation". Step 1 runs a gh issue list export and the bundled scripts/triage-baseline.py on it. SKILL.md says it does not triage individual items, review code or handle conduct incidents.

Good for

Maintainers with hundreds of open issues and no process
Teams deciding whether to run a stale bot
Projects swamped by low-quality or AI-generated reports

Install oss-issue-triage

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the oss-issue-triage skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add samber/developer-relations-skills
/plugin install developer-relations-skills@developer-relations-skills

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.

2
Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

The README recommends installing the whole collection because its skills reference each other, and oss-issue-triage names other skills in the collection to hand work to. The whole-collection routes add all 93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree); the repo holds no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. This skill runs scripts/triage-baseline.py, which needs python3 (SKILL.md step 1 also uses the gh CLI). Pick one route per agent.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Designs an issue and pull-request triage system a maintainer team can sustain - response targets sized against real capacity, the label taxonomy, intake cuts through structured forms and off-tracker routing, a separate security-report path, triage duty assignment, and the closing, staleness and volume-gating policy. Use whenever someone says "our issue tracker is out of control", "design an issue triage process", "set up labels for our repo", "we have 900 open issues", "should we run a stale bot", "PR backlog nobody reviews", "triage rotation", or "we are drowning in AI-generated reports" - even if they only say maintenance is overwhelming. Not good-first-issue curation - use samber/developer-relations-skills@oss-contributor-onboarding.

Sections in SKILL.md

Interview
Step 1 - Measure the queue before changing it
Step 2 - Do the capacity arithmetic
Step 3 - Design the label taxonomy
Step 4 - Cut the intake
Step 5 - Assign the duty
Step 6 - Give pull requests their own gate order
Step 7 - Write the closing and staleness policy
Step 8 - Automate classification, never the first reply
Step 9 - Publish, run a pilot pass, measure
Invocation examples
Deliverable
Failure modes
References

Key facts

Author: Samuel Berthe (named in SKILL.md metadata, LICENSE and the plugin manifest)
License: MIT (LICENSE file, SKILL.md frontmatter, plugin.json and marketplace.json agree)
Skill version: 1.0.2 (SKILL.md metadata)
Installs on skills.sh: 12,410 (Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars: 8 for the whole samber/developer-relations-skills repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last repo commit: Nov 1, 2026
Audits on skills.sh: Gen Agent Trust Hub: pass, Socket: pass, Snyk: warn
What it includes: 9 files in the git tree: SKILL.md, evals/evals.json, 6 files under references/ and scripts/triage-baseline.py.
Needs: python3 and the gh CLI (the commands SKILL.md shows in step 1)
Part of: The developer-relations-skills plugin: 93 skill folders in the git tree
Works in: The README documents installs for Claude Code, Claude.ai, Codex, Cursor and Gemini CLI, all for the whole set

What it includes

Asks 12 questions; questions 1 to 6 gate the design.
Interview
Exports issues with gh and runs triage-baseline.py for age and response stats.
Exports issues with gh issue list and runs triage-baseline.py for age, untriaged share, first response time and label usage.
Runs code · Step 1: Measure the queue
Compares capacity with inflow and picks a lever to close the gap.
Compares triage capacity with inflow and picks a lever: cut intake, shorten the promise or add triagers.
Step 2: Capacity arithmetic
Uses orthogonal axes with one value each; automation never sets the top priority.
Orthogonal axes with one value each, and a rule never to let automation apply the top priority.
Step 3: Label taxonomy
Routes questions off the tracker, adds validated forms and a private security path.
Chooser routing, validated forms, disabling blank issues and an auto-applied type label, plus a private security path.
Step 4: Cut the intake
Sets a rota with shift length, a named backup, a time box and an escalation rule.
A rota with shift length, a named backup, a time-boxed session and an escalation rule.
Step 5: Assign the duty
Puts sign-off and CI permission first, then direction check, size label and review.
Sign-off and CI permission first, then direction check, size label and code review.
Step 6: Pull request gates
Auto-closes only items waiting on a reporter, with a warning and a dry run first.
Auto-close only items waiting on a reporter, warn first and run the first sweep as a dry run.
Step 7: Closing and staleness
Automates classification but not the first reply, then times a pilot pass on 15-20 items.
Steps 8-9: Automate and pilot
Reads an issue export (JSON, JSONL or CSV) and prints queue statistics.
Reads an issue export (JSON, JSON Lines or CSV) and prints queue statistics; options are --stale-days, --window-days, --triage-prefix and --format.
Runs code · scripts/triage-baseline.py

From the official docs

Permissions

Medium risk

oss-issue-triage exports your repository's issues with the gh CLI, analyses them with a Python script and designs tracker changes. Our advice: approve the label and automation changes yourself and run any stale sweep as a dry run first.

What it can do

Read your data
Create and change things
Delete things
Read-only mode

Watch out for

It exports issue data to local files
SKILL.md tells Claude to run gh issue list for up to 2000 issues, requesting number, title, state, dates, labels, author and comments, into issues.json, then run triage-baseline.py on it. SKILL.md says to present the label taxonomy for approval before touching the tracker; it states no approval step for forms or automation. Our advice: approve each tracker change yourself before it is applied. github.com
A stale bot can close items
SKILL.md recommends closing only items waiting on a reporter, warning first and running the first sweep as a dry run. Follow that order before enabling any auto-close. github.com
It may save notes to devrel-context.md
SKILL.md tells Claude to keep task and project context in devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file, or in the memory system your tool already uses. Check the file before you commit it. github.com
The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 with scripts
The README says to install every skill. The git tree has 93 skill folders, and 14 of them hold .py or .sh files. This skill bundles scripts/triage-baseline.py. The tree holds no hooks, agents or MCP config files. github.com

Technical details

Turning on read-only	SKILL.md describes no read-only mode.
Sign-in and keys	SKILL.md and the bundled script name no account, key or token.
Scopes	Claude designs a triage policy, labels and a rota in the conversation gh issue list writes the issue export to issues.json; SKILL.md's second baseline example writes baseline.json triage-baseline.py reads the export and prints a report SKILL.md says to present the label taxonomy for approval before touching the tracker Writes devrel-context.md when memory lives in a file

Questions

What does oss-issue-triage do?

It designs a triage system for a project's issues and pull requests. You get a baseline of the queue, a published triage policy, a label change list, an intake change list and a rota with a pull request gate order.

How do I install it?

Use the install box at the top. The README says to install every skill in the repo, because the skills point to each other. The box shows the whole-set route for each app. There is no Claude app route listed, because the baseline steps need a local shell, python3 and the gh CLI.

What commands does step 1 run?

SKILL.md shows gh issue list --state all --limit 2000 with a --json field list, redirected to issues.json, then python3 scripts/triage-baseline.py on that file. The script reads local files and prints a report.

Will it change my tracker settings?

SKILL.md says to present the label taxonomy for your approval before touching the tracker, and to run the first stale-sweep pass as a dry run. It also warns that guessed labels send items to the wrong owner.

Is it safe to install?

The step 1 export contains issue titles, authors and comments from your repository and is saved to issues.json in the folder you run it from. SKILL.md says to present the label taxonomy for your approval before touching the tracker and states no approval step for forms or automation, so approve those yourself. The whole-set install adds 93 skills, 14 of which bundle scripts.

How is it different from oss-contributor-onboarding?

This skill handles the incoming queue. SKILL.md routes good first issue curation and the first-contribution path to samber/developer-relations-skills@oss-contributor-onboarding.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository: samber/developer-relations-skills
Folder: skills/oss-issue-triage

samber/developer-relations-skills skills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 4

README · github.com
oss-issue-triage SKILL.md · github.com
oss-issue-triage scripts/triage-baseline.py · github.com
LICENSE · github.com