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feat: add issue-triage agentic workflow (gh-aw IssueOps) - #185

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Elizabeth Maher (EMaher) merged 12 commits into
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emaher-feat-issue-triage-workflow
Jun 24, 2026
Merged

Elizabeth Maher (EMaher) merged 12 commits into
mainfrom
emaher-feat-issue-triage-workflow

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@EMaher

@EMaher Elizabeth Maher (EMaher) commented Jun 23, 2026 •

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Motivation

New issues currently require manual triage -- reading content, deciding on type/effort labels, and routing to the right domain. This PR adds an automated first-pass triage using the gh-aw IssueOps pattern so every opened issue gets an immediate recommendation comment and advisory labels, reducing time-to-triage for human reviewers.

Approach

Adds .github/workflows/issue-triage.md, a gh-aw agentic workflow that triggers on issues: [opened]. The design enforces strict security boundaries between untrusted issue content and trusted repo policy:

  • Context separation: Deterministic steps: write issue title/body into a user context file and .squad/routing.md + .squad/team.md into a system context file. A contract-test step verifies no cross-contamination before the agent runs.
  • Safe outputs: Labels are constrained to an explicit advisory allowlist (type:bug, type:feature, type:question, type:documentation, duplicate, effort:*) with governance labels (squad:*, go:*, priority:*, override:*) blocked. Max 3 labels, max 1 comment.
  • Schema enforcement: A post-steps: handler validates the agent's triage comment includes both a confidence score and an uncertainty indicator, failing the workflow if either is missing.
  • Team consultation: The triage agent can call Squad Agent team members for domain-specific analysis when issues cross specializations.
  • Label sync alignment: Updates .github/workflows/sync-squad-labels.yml so the advisory triage labels exist in the repository and preserves the existing type:feature definition.

The triage comment is advisory only -- a human reviews it and applies governance labels afterward.

Non-obvious decisions

  • The confidence/uncertainty regex in post-steps: is intentionally broad to avoid false negatives while still catching missing fields entirely.
  • Suggested assignee was intentionally omitted from the comment format; assignee routing will be added after the go/no-go decision process is defined.

Elizabeth Maher (EMaher) and others added 4 commits June 23, 2026 09:47
Implements gh-aw IssueOps pattern for automated issue triage on open.
Key design decisions:
- Issue content passed as user context; routing/team policy as system context
- Contract tests enforce context separation (prevents prompt injection)
- Post-check validates triage comments include confidence + uncertainty
- Safe outputs constrain labels to advisory-only allowed list (max 3)
- Governance labels (squad:*, go:*, priority:*) explicitly blocked
- Single triage recommendation comment per issue for human review

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Assignee routing will be determined after the go/no-go decision.

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
The triage agent can now call Squad Agent team members for
domain-specific analysis when issues cross specializations.

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
@EMaher

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Workflow follows Issue Triage Assistant Agentic Workflow example.

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Pull request overview

This PR introduces a new gh-aw IssueOps workflow to automatically triage newly opened GitHub issues by generating an advisory comment and applying a constrained set of advisory labels, using squad routing/team policy as “system context” and issue text as “user context”.

Changes:

  • Adds a new .github/workflows/issue-triage.md agentic workflow triggered on issues: opened.
  • Implements context preparation + a “context separation” contract test before the agent runs.
  • Adds a post-step schema check to enforce that the agent’s triage comment includes both confidence and uncertainty fields.

Comment thread .github/workflows/issue-triage.md Outdated
Comment thread .github/workflows/issue-triage.md Outdated
Comment thread .github/workflows/issue-triage.md Outdated
Comment thread .github/workflows/issue-triage.md Outdated
Comment thread .github/workflows/issue-triage.md
Comment thread .github/workflows/issue-triage.md
Comment thread .github/workflows/sync-squad-labels.yml Outdated
Comment thread .github/workflows/issue-triage.md Outdated
@EMaher

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Copilot Have squad handle the comments.

@EMaher
Elizabeth Maher (EMaher) merged commit a24441f into main Jun 24, 2026
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@EMaher

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Related to #90

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4 participants