Skill Vault · Set up your tools
Prepare your project for engineering Skills
Describe the issue tracker and documentation layout the other Skills use.
A repository and your preferences for tracking work and recording decisions.
Skill name /setup-espo-skills
Your next step
Try it for yourself
You’ll need: A repository and your preferences for tracking work and recording decisions.
Paste into your coding agent with the relevant project open.
This is a one-off starter for the approach. Installing the full Skill adds its complete instructions.
Inspect this repository and propose its issue tracker, triage-label mapping, and domain-document layout. Show me the recommended setup before writing anything.
What happens nextThe agent proposes the setup for your review before writing anything.
Use it again
Add the full Skill.
The starter lets you try the approach. Installation adds the complete instructions to your AI coding tool.
Copy the setup instructionsFor Codex or Claude Code on your computer
Your next step
Ask your agent to help you install it
You’ll need: Node.js with npx, Git, and the agent you choose. A project folder where you want the Skill available.
Paste this into Codex or Claude Code with your project open. Your agent will help you review and install the package.
Review files and permissions before accepting an install. Adding a Skill does not run it.
Help me install /setup-espo-skills from MattEspo23/skills v0.1.2 in this project.
Review the package instructions and supporting files first. Include these Skills: setup-espo-skills.
Use the command for the agent I am using:
Add to Codex:
npx skills@latest add 'MattEspo23/skills#v0.1.2' --skill setup-espo-skills --agent codex --copy
Add to Claude Code:
npx skills@latest add 'MattEspo23/skills#v0.1.2' --skill setup-espo-skills --agent claude-code --copy
Show me where the files will go before making changes. Preserve existing Skills and customizations. Stop if the release, supporting Skills, or target agent cannot be verified. Do not run the Skill or change external services during setup.
After installation, explain how I can use /setup-espo-skills and what access it needs.
What happens nextYour agent should review and add /setup-espo-skills, then explain how to use /setup-espo-skills. Stop if a dependency or version cannot be verified.
No additional supporting Skill is required by this package. Source version: v0.1.2.
Prefer a terminal command?
Add to Codex
npx skills@latest add 'MattEspo23/skills#v0.1.2' --skill setup-espo-skills --agent codex --copy
Add to Claude Code
npx skills@latest add 'MattEspo23/skills#v0.1.2' --skill setup-espo-skills --agent claude-code --copy
Installing copies the instructions into your chosen agent. It does not run the Skill or configure project tools.
Keep the package’s supporting files, LICENSE and NOTICE together with the Skill instructions.
Full notes & source materialThe complete original text, examples and reference details.
These are the complete original notes. Planned videos and services mentioned here may not be available yet; the actions above reflect what you can use on this site now.
Configure one repository so the rest of the engineering Skills know where its work and context live.
Watch

Skill Vault video planned · Video planned
Install
Public release v0.1.2 — install the latest source or pin the tested release.
Install latest
npx skills@latest add MattEspo23/skills --skill setup-espo-skills
Reproducible install
npx skills@latest add 'MattEspo23/skills#v0.1.2' --skill setup-espo-skills
Clean installs are verified for Codex and Claude Code. The installer copies editable files into the selected agent; review every Skill before giving it tool access.
This is the public, editable adapted baseline. Its deeper Espo-specific revision and Skill Vault video are planned; the released source can be installed now.
What it does
setup-espo-skills answers three questions about one repo — where issues live, what the triage labels are called, and where the domain docs sit — and records the answers as markdown files under docs/agents/.
Those files are the only thing that varies between repos. The skills themselves are identical everywhere; they read docs/agents/issue-tracker.md at run time and do what it says. That is why the set is not tied to GitHub, and why no skill file ever needs editing to point it somewhere else. Invoking it with "link the skills to a custom issue tracker" works with anything you can connect to programmatically, with zero changes to the skills.
It is a prompt-driven skill, not a deterministic script. It reads your git remote, your existing CLAUDE.md, your existing CONTEXT.md, proposes what it found, and waits for you to confirm before writing anything.
When to reach for it
You invoke this by typing /setup-espo-skills — the agent won't reach for it on its own. It is deliberately marked non-invokable, so no other skill can fire it for you.
Reach for it once per repo, before the first use of any other engineering skill. If triage, to-spec, to-tickets or wayfinder start guessing where your issues go, or apply labels your tracker doesn't have, they have not been set up here yet. A repo already halfway through a project is a fine place to run it; the skill reads what is already there and no earlier work is wasted.
Prerequisites
It writes into the repo you run it in:
| It writes | Where |
|---|---|
issue-tracker.md | docs/agents/ |
domain.md | docs/agents/ |
triage-labels.md | docs/agents/, only when the triage skill is installed |
An ## Agent skills block | whichever of CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md already exists |
All of it is committed markdown. There is no user-level or global mode: the config lives in the repo, so every repo gets its own copy.
The three decisions
It leads each section with the recommended answer, and skips whatever exploration already settled. Most runs are two confirmations and done.
| Decision | What it proposes | When it actually asks |
|---|---|---|
| Issue tracker | the one matching your git remote | always — this is the one real choice |
| Triage labels | keep the five canonical names (needs-triage, needs-info, ready-for-agent, ready-for-human, wontfix) | only if the triage skill is installed |
| Domain docs | single-context: one CONTEXT.md plus docs/adr/ at the root | only if it spots monorepo signals, and then it offers a multi-context CONTEXT-MAP.md |
The tracker options:
| Option | Where issues live | Needs |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub | the repo's GitHub Issues | the gh CLI |
| GitLab | the repo's GitLab Issues | the glab CLI |
| Local markdown | files under .scratch/<feature>/ in this repo | nothing — no remote at all |
| Other | wherever you say | one paragraph from you describing the workflow |
The first three ship as templates in the skill and work out of the box. Local markdown is a first-class option, not a fallback: a solo project with no remote is fully supported. One caveat is worth repeating: don't use local markdown if you're using GitHub. They are alternatives, not layers.
"Other" is not a stub either. It is the reason Jira, Linear, Azure DevOps and Beads all work: you describe the workflow, the skill records your prose in docs/agents/issue-tracker.md, and the downstream skills follow the prose. The community has already done this — a Jira-over-MCP variant, a Gitea CLI shaped like gh, a hand-built local dashboard.
Common questions
Do I have to use GitHub?
No. GitHub, GitLab and local markdown under .scratch/ all ship as ready-made templates, and anything else works through the "other" path. This is the most-repeated question in the record, in roughly these words: "hard locked to github", "can I use GitLab / Jira", "what about Azure DevOps". The answer every time is that the tracker is a setup answer, not a skill property.
Do I need to re-run it after updating the skills?
Asked directly after v1.1, Matt said yes. The skill's own closing message is softer — it tells you re-running is only needed to switch trackers or start over. Both are defensible and the reason for the gap is real: the seed templates change between versions, so a docs/agents/issue-tracker.md written by an older release can go stale against the skills now reading it. If a downstream skill starts doing something the docs describe differently, re-running is the cheap fix.
It wrote to CLAUDE.md, but I'm on Codex.
Known gap, still open. The file-selection rule is "edit CLAUDE.md if it exists, else AGENTS.md" — it checks which file exists, not which harness is running. A repo with a CLAUDE.md left over from Claude Code will get its ## Agent skills block somewhere Codex never reads. Two workarounds are in circulation: move the block to AGENTS.md by hand, or keep AGENTS.md canonical and make CLAUDE.md a one-line pointer at it. If neither file exists, the skill asks you which to create rather than picking, which has confused people who expected it to just decide.
It didn't create my triage labels.
It doesn't. docs/agents/triage-labels.md is a mapping — it tells /triage which strings in your tracker correspond to the five canonical roles. It does not run gh label create. On a fresh GitHub repo the labels genuinely do not exist yet, and this has been filed as a bug more than once. Two follow-ons:
- If your tracker already uses the canonical names, the mapping is an identity table and there is nothing to configure. That is the intended common case, not a missing step.
- wayfinder's
wayfinder:mapandwayfinder:<type>labels are not created here either, andgh issue create --label <missing>fails outright rather than creating the label. Create them by hand before the first wayfinder run on a GitHub repo.
Can I configure the other skills' behaviour here — grilling cadence, question format, tone?
No. It configures three things: tracker, labels, doc layout. There have been direct requests to make it the home for per-user preferences, and the standing answer is that skills stay opinionated: "Config is death." Preferences belong in your CLAUDE.md as plain instructions, which every skill already reads.
Can I keep the config in ~/.claude instead of committing it to every repo?
Not today. There is an open request for exactly this from someone running the skills across many repos, and no user-level mode exists. Every repo carries its own docs/agents/.
Isn't it strange to have a skill that configures the other skills?
One long-standing complaint says yes, in these words: "having a skill to set up the other skill does not feel right to me — that means the LLM is configuring its own skills." The trade is real and acknowledged: the alternative to a setup step is duplicating tracker instructions into every skill that touches issues. The output is inspectable, editable markdown, which is the mitigation — you can read every file it wrote and change it by hand, and day-to-day tweaks are exactly that, not another run.
It's working if
docs/agents/issue-tracker.mdanddocs/agents/domain.mdexist, plustriage-labels.mdiftriageis installed.- An
## Agent skillssection appears in the instruction file your harness actually reads, with a one-line summary pointing at each of those files. - The tracker it proposed matches the remote you really use, and the label strings match labels that really exist in your tracker.
- Afterwards,
/to-ticketspublishes without asking you where issues live, and/triageapplies labels rather than inventing them. - Nothing in the skill files themselves changed. If setup edited a
SKILL.md, something went wrong.
Where it fits
setup-espo-skills is the run-once setup for the engineering flow, the precondition everything else assumes rather than a step in the chain. Its neighbours are its readers: triage, which applies the label vocabulary written here; to-spec and to-tickets, which publish into the tracker named here; and wayfinder, which reads the "Wayfinding operations" section of the same tracker file to know how maps and child tickets are stored. The domain-doc layout it records is the one domain-modeling fills in later — it creates CONTEXT.md and ADRs lazily, when a term or decision actually gets resolved, so an empty repo after setup is the expected state. For which skill to reach for next, ask-espo routes the whole set.
Try it once
Use the core behavior in one conversation before installation. The repeatable Skill package is the primary path when you want the behavior available across future work.
Inspect this repository and propose its issue tracker, triage-label mapping, and domain-document layout. Show me the recommended setup before writing anything.
Source & license
Released in EspoAI Skills v0.1.2; adapted from mattpocock/skills v1.2.3. The released package is skills/engineering/setup-espo-skills/SKILL.md.
The public package is MIT-licensed and pinned here to the exact release commit. View the released EspoAI source
The adapted baseline preserves the upstream copyright, MIT permission notice, and pinned provenance. View the original pinned source
Skill package files
The full Skill text as copied from content/skill-vault/skills/setup-espo-skills/. Supporting agent configuration files stay in that folder.
SKILL.md
---
name: setup-espo-skills
description: Configure this repo for the engineering skills — set up its issue tracker, triage label vocabulary, and domain doc layout. Run once before first use of the other engineering skills.
---
# Setup EspoAI Skills
Scaffold the per-repo configuration that the engineering skills assume:
- **Issue tracker** — where issues live (GitHub by default; local markdown is also supported out of the box)
- **Triage labels** — the strings used for the five canonical triage roles
- **Domain docs** — where `CONTEXT.md` and ADRs live, and the consumer rules for reading them
This is a prompt-driven skill, not a deterministic script. Explore, present what you found, confirm with the user, then write.
## Process
### 1. Explore
Look at the current repo to understand its starting state. Read whatever exists; don't assume:
- `git remote -v` and `.git/config` — is this a GitHub repo? Which one?
- `AGENTS.md` and `CLAUDE.md` at the repo root — does either exist? Is there already an `## Agent skills` section in either?
- `CONTEXT.md` and `CONTEXT-MAP.md` at the repo root
- `docs/adr/` and any `src/*/docs/adr/` directories
- `docs/agents/` — does this skill's prior output already exist?
- `.scratch/` — sign that a local-markdown issue tracker convention is already in use
- Is the `triage` skill installed? (a `triage` skill folder alongside this one, or `triage` in your available skills.) This decides whether Section B runs at all.
- Monorepo signals — a `pnpm-workspace.yaml`, a `workspaces` field in `package.json`, or a populated `packages/*` with its own `src/`. Present only in a genuinely large multi-package repo; their absence means single-context, which is almost every repo.
### 2. Present findings and ask
Summarise what's present and what's missing. Then take the sections in order — one section, one answer, then the next.
Lead each section with the recommended answer so the user can accept it in a word. Give a one-line explainer only when the choice genuinely branches; skip the section entirely when exploration already settled it (Section B when `triage` isn't installed, Section C when there's no monorepo).
**Section A — Issue tracker.**
> Explainer: The "issue tracker" is where issues live for this repo. Skills like `to-tickets`, `triage`, and `to-spec` read from and write to it — they need to know whether to call `gh issue create`, write a markdown file under `.scratch/`, or follow some other workflow you describe. Pick the place you actually track work for this repo.
Default posture: these skills were designed for GitHub. If a `git remote` points at GitHub, propose that. If a `git remote` points at GitLab (`gitlab.com` or a self-hosted host), propose GitLab. Otherwise (or if the user prefers), offer:
- **GitHub** — issues live in the repo's GitHub Issues (uses the `gh` CLI)
- **GitLab** — issues live in the repo's GitLab Issues (uses the [`glab`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli) CLI)
- **Local markdown** — issues live as files under `.scratch/<feature>/` in this repo (good for solo projects or repos without a remote)
- **Other** (Jira, Linear, etc.) — ask the user to describe the workflow in one paragraph; the skill will record it as freeform prose
Record the choice in `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`. The GitHub and GitLab templates carry a "PRs as a request surface" flag, defaulted **off** — leave it off and don't raise it; a user who wants external PRs in the triage queue can flip the flag in the file later.
**Section B — Triage label vocabulary.** Skip this section entirely if the `triage` skill isn't installed (exploration told you) — an uninstalled skill needs no labels.
If it is installed, ask exactly one question:
> Do you want to keep the default triage labels? (recommended: **yes**)
The defaults are the five canonical roles, each label string equal to its name: `needs-triage`, `needs-info`, `ready-for-agent`, `ready-for-human`, `wontfix`. On **yes**, write them as-is. Only if the user says no — usually because their tracker already uses other names (e.g. `bug:triage` for `needs-triage`) — collect the overrides so `triage` applies existing labels instead of creating duplicates.
**Section C — Domain docs.** Default to **single-context** — one `CONTEXT.md` + `docs/adr/` at the repo root. This fits almost every repo; write it without asking.
Offer **multi-context** — a root `CONTEXT-MAP.md` pointing to per-context `CONTEXT.md` files — only when exploration found monorepo signals. Then confirm which layout they want.
### 3. Confirm and edit
Show the user a draft of:
- The `## Agent skills` block to add to whichever of `CLAUDE.md` / `AGENTS.md` is being edited (see step 4 for selection rules)
- The contents of `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`, `docs/agents/domain.md`, and `docs/agents/triage-labels.md` (the last only when `triage` is installed)
Let them edit before writing.
### 4. Write
**Pick the file to edit:**
- If `CLAUDE.md` exists, edit it.
- Else if `AGENTS.md` exists, edit it.
- If neither exists, ask the user which one to create — don't pick for them.
Never create `AGENTS.md` when `CLAUDE.md` already exists (or vice versa) — always edit the one that's already there.
If an `## Agent skills` block already exists in the chosen file, update its contents in-place rather than appending a duplicate. Don't overwrite user edits to the surrounding sections.
The block:
```markdown
## Agent skills
### Issue tracker
[one-line summary of where issues are tracked]. See `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md`.
### Triage labels
[one-line summary of the label vocabulary]. See `docs/agents/triage-labels.md`.
### Domain docs
[one-line summary of layout — "single-context" or "multi-context"]. See `docs/agents/domain.md`.
```
Include the `### Triage labels` sub-block, and write `docs/agents/triage-labels.md`, only when `triage` is installed and Section B ran. When it isn't, both are omitted.
Then write the docs files using the seed templates in this skill folder as a starting point:
- [issue-tracker-github.md](./issue-tracker-github.md) — GitHub issue tracker
- [issue-tracker-gitlab.md](./issue-tracker-gitlab.md) — GitLab issue tracker
- [issue-tracker-local.md](./issue-tracker-local.md) — local-markdown issue tracker
- [triage-labels.md](./triage-labels.md) — label mapping (only if `triage` is installed)
- [domain.md](./domain.md) — domain doc consumer rules + layout
For "other" issue trackers, write `docs/agents/issue-tracker.md` from scratch using the user's description.
### 5. Done
Tell the user the setup is complete and which engineering skills will now read from these files. Mention they can edit `docs/agents/*.md` directly later — re-running this skill is only necessary if they want to switch issue trackers or restart from scratch.
domain.md
# Domain Docs
How the engineering skills should consume this repo's domain documentation when exploring the codebase.
## Before exploring, read these
- **`CONTEXT.md`** at the repo root, or
- **`CONTEXT-MAP.md`** at the repo root if it exists — it points at one `CONTEXT.md` per context. Read each one relevant to the topic.
- **`docs/adr/`** — read ADRs that touch the area you're about to work in. In multi-context repos, also check `src/<context>/docs/adr/` for context-scoped decisions.
If any of these files don't exist, **proceed silently**. Don't flag their absence; don't suggest creating them upfront. The `/domain-modeling` skill (reached via `/grill-with-docs` and `/improve-codebase-architecture`) creates them lazily when terms or decisions actually get resolved.
## File structure
Single-context repo (most repos):
```
/
├── CONTEXT.md
├── docs/adr/
│ ├── 0001-event-sourced-orders.md
│ └── 0002-postgres-for-write-model.md
└── src/
```
Multi-context repo (presence of `CONTEXT-MAP.md` at the root):
```
/
├── CONTEXT-MAP.md
├── docs/adr/ ← system-wide decisions
└── src/
├── ordering/
│ ├── CONTEXT.md
│ └── docs/adr/ ← context-specific decisions
└── billing/
├── CONTEXT.md
└── docs/adr/
```
## Use the glossary's vocabulary
When your output names a domain concept (in an issue title, a refactor proposal, a hypothesis, a test name), use the term as defined in `CONTEXT.md`. Don't drift to synonyms the glossary explicitly avoids.
If the concept you need isn't in the glossary yet, that's a signal — either you're inventing language the project doesn't use (reconsider) or there's a real gap (note it for `/domain-modeling`).
## Flag ADR conflicts
If your output contradicts an existing ADR, surface it explicitly rather than silently overriding:
> _Contradicts ADR-0007 (event-sourced orders) — but worth reopening because…_
issue-tracker-github.md
# Issue tracker: GitHub
Issues and specs for this repo live as GitHub issues. Use the `gh` CLI for all operations.
## Conventions
- **Create an issue**: `gh issue create --title "..." --body "..."`. Use a heredoc for multi-line bodies.
- **Read an issue**: `gh issue view <number> --comments`, filtering comments by `jq` and also fetching labels.
- **List issues**: `gh issue list --state open --json number,title,body,labels,comments --jq '[.[] | {number, title, body, labels: [.labels[].name], comments: [.comments[].body]}]'` with appropriate `--label` and `--state` filters.
- **Comment on an issue**: `gh issue comment <number> --body "..."`
- **Apply / remove labels**: `gh issue edit <number> --add-label "..."` / `--remove-label "..."`
- **Close**: `gh issue close <number> --comment "..."`
Infer the repo from `git remote -v` — `gh` does this automatically when run inside a clone.
## Pull requests as a triage surface
**PRs as a request surface: no.** _(Set to `yes` if this repo treats external PRs as feature requests; `/triage` reads this flag.)_
When set to `yes`, PRs run through the same labels and states as issues, using the `gh pr` equivalents:
- **Read a PR**: `gh pr view <number> --comments` and `gh pr diff <number>` for the diff.
- **List external PRs for triage**: `gh pr list --state open --json number,title,body,labels,author,authorAssociation,comments` then keep only `authorAssociation` of `CONTRIBUTOR`, `FIRST_TIME_CONTRIBUTOR`, or `NONE` (drop `OWNER`/`MEMBER`/`COLLABORATOR`).
- **Comment / label / close**: `gh pr comment`, `gh pr edit --add-label`/`--remove-label`, `gh pr close`.
GitHub shares one number space across issues and PRs, so a bare `#42` may be either — resolve with `gh pr view 42` and fall back to `gh issue view 42`.
## When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"
Create a GitHub issue.
## When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"
Run `gh issue view <number> --comments`.
## Wayfinding operations
Used by `/wayfinder`. The **map** is a single issue with **child** issues as tickets.
- **Map**: a single issue labelled `wayfinder:map`, holding the Notes / Decisions-so-far / Fog body. `gh issue create --label wayfinder:map`.
- **Child ticket**: an issue linked to the map as a GitHub sub-issue (`gh api` on the sub-issues endpoint). Where sub-issues aren't enabled, add the child to a task list in the map body and put `Part of #<map>` at the top of the child body. Labels: `wayfinder:<type>` (`research`/`prototype`/`grilling`/`task`). Once claimed, the ticket is assigned to the driving dev.
- **Blocking**: GitHub's **native issue dependencies** — the canonical, UI-visible representation. Add an edge with `gh api --method POST repos/<owner>/<repo>/issues/<child>/dependencies/blocked_by -F issue_id=<blocker-db-id>`, where `<blocker-db-id>` is the blocker's numeric **database id** (`gh api repos/<owner>/<repo>/issues/<n> --jq .id`, _not_ the `#number` or `node_id`). GitHub reports `issue_dependencies_summary.blocked_by` (open blockers only — the live gate). Where dependencies aren't available, fall back to a `Blocked by: #<n>, #<n>` line at the top of the child body. A ticket is unblocked when every blocker is closed.
- **Frontier query**: list the map's open children (`gh issue list --state open`, scoped to the map's sub-issues / task list), drop any with an open blocker (`issue_dependencies_summary.blocked_by > 0`, or an open issue in the `Blocked by` line) or an assignee; first in map order wins.
- **Claim**: `gh issue edit <n> --add-assignee @me` — the session's first write.
- **Resolve**: `gh issue comment <n> --body "<answer>"`, then `gh issue close <n>`, then append a context pointer (gist + link) to the map's Decisions-so-far.
issue-tracker-gitlab.md
# Issue tracker: GitLab
Issues and specs for this repo live as GitLab issues. Use the [`glab`](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/cli) CLI for all operations.
## Conventions
- **Create an issue**: `glab issue create --title "..." --description "..."`. Use a heredoc for multi-line descriptions. Pass `--description -` to open an editor.
- **Read an issue**: `glab issue view <number> --comments`. Use `-F json` for machine-readable output.
- **List issues**: `glab issue list -F json` with appropriate `--label` filters.
- **Comment on an issue**: `glab issue note <number> --message "..."`. GitLab calls comments "notes".
- **Apply / remove labels**: `glab issue update <number> --label "..."` / `--unlabel "..."`. Multiple labels can be comma-separated or by repeating the flag.
- **Close**: `glab issue close <number>`. `glab issue close` does not accept a closing comment, so post the explanation first with `glab issue note <number> --message "..."`, then close.
- **Merge requests**: GitLab calls PRs "merge requests". Use `glab mr create`, `glab mr view`, `glab mr note`, etc. — the same shape as `gh pr ...` with `mr` in place of `pr` and `note`/`--message` in place of `comment`/`--body`.
Infer the repo from `git remote -v` — `glab` does this automatically when run inside a clone.
## Merge requests as a triage surface
**MRs as a request surface: no.** _(Set to `yes` if this repo treats external merge requests as feature requests; `/triage` reads this flag.)_
When set to `yes`, MRs run through the same labels and states as issues, using the `glab mr` equivalents:
- **Read an MR**: `glab mr view <number> --comments` and `glab mr diff <number>` for the diff.
- **List external MRs for triage**: `glab mr list -F json`, then keep only MRs whose author is not a project member/owner (a contributor's MR, not a maintainer's in-flight work).
- **Comment / label / close**: `glab mr note`, `glab mr update --label`/`--unlabel`, `glab mr close`.
Unlike GitHub, GitLab numbers issues and MRs separately, so `#42` is unambiguous once you know which surface the maintainer means.
## When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"
Create a GitLab issue.
## When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"
Run `glab issue view <number> --comments`.
## Wayfinding operations
Used by `/wayfinder`. The **map** is a single issue with **child** issues as tickets.
- **Map**: a single issue labelled `wayfinder:map`, holding the Notes / Decisions-so-far / Fog body. `glab issue create --label wayfinder:map`. (On GitLab tiers with native epics, an epic may hold the map instead; a labelled issue works everywhere.)
- **Child ticket**: an issue carrying `Part of #<map>` at the top of its description and labels `wayfinder:<type>` (`research`/`prototype`/`grilling`/`task`). Once claimed, the ticket is assigned to the driving dev.
- **Blocking**: GitLab's **native blocking link** — the canonical, UI-visible representation. Add it with the `/blocked_by #<n>` quick action, posted as a note (`glab issue note <child> --message "/blocked_by #<blocker>"`). Native blocking links are a Premium/Ultimate feature; on the free tier (or where unavailable) fall back to a `Blocked by: #<n>, #<n>` line at the top of the description. A ticket is unblocked when every blocker is closed.
- **Frontier query**: `glab issue list -F json` scoped to the map's children, drop any with an open blocker — a native `blocked_by` link to an open issue (`glab api projects/:id/issues/:iid/links`), or an open issue in the `Blocked by` line — or an assignee; first in map order wins.
- **Claim**: `glab issue update <n> --assignee @me` — the session's first write.
- **Resolve**: `glab issue note <n> --message "<answer>"`, then `glab issue close <n>`, then append a context pointer (gist + link) to the map's Decisions-so-far.
issue-tracker-local.md
# Issue tracker: Local Markdown
Issues and specs for this repo live as markdown files in `.scratch/`.
## Conventions
- One feature per directory: `.scratch/<feature-slug>/`
- The spec is `.scratch/<feature-slug>/spec.md`
- Implementation issues are one file per ticket at `.scratch/<feature-slug>/issues/<NN>-<slug>.md`, numbered from `01` — never a single combined tickets file
- Triage state is recorded as a `Status:` line near the top of each issue file (see `triage-labels.md` for the role strings)
- Comments and conversation history append to the bottom of the file under a `## Comments` heading
## When a skill says "publish to the issue tracker"
Create a new file under `.scratch/<feature-slug>/` (creating the directory if needed).
## When a skill says "fetch the relevant ticket"
Read the file at the referenced path. The user will normally pass the path or the issue number directly.
## Wayfinding operations
Used by `/wayfinder`. The **map** is a file with one **child** file per ticket.
- **Map**: `.scratch/<effort>/map.md` — the Notes / Decisions-so-far / Fog body.
- **Child ticket**: `.scratch/<effort>/issues/NN-<slug>.md`, numbered from `01`, with the question in the body. A `Type:` line records the ticket type (`research`/`prototype`/`grilling`/`task`); a `Status:` line records `claimed`/`resolved`.
- **Blocking**: a `Blocked by: NN, NN` line near the top. A ticket is unblocked when every file it lists is `resolved`.
- **Frontier**: scan `.scratch/<effort>/issues/` for files that are open, unblocked, and unclaimed; first by number wins.
- **Claim**: set `Status: claimed` and save before any work.
- **Resolve**: append the answer under an `## Answer` heading, set `Status: resolved`, then append a context pointer (gist + link) to the map's Decisions-so-far in `map.md`.
triage-labels.md
# Triage Labels
The skills speak in terms of five canonical triage roles. This file maps those roles to the actual label strings used in this repo's issue tracker.
| Canonical triage role | Label in our tracker | Meaning |
| -------------------------- | -------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| `needs-triage` | `needs-triage` | Maintainer needs to evaluate this issue |
| `needs-info` | `needs-info` | Waiting on reporter for more information |
| `ready-for-agent` | `ready-for-agent` | Fully specified, ready for an AFK agent |
| `ready-for-human` | `ready-for-human` | Requires human implementation |
| `wontfix` | `wontfix` | Will not be actioned |
When a skill mentions a role (e.g. "apply the AFK-ready triage label"), use the corresponding label string from this table.
Edit the right-hand column to match whatever vocabulary you actually use.
Keep going