gstack/docs/triage.md

Issue triage

How gstack issues move between open, parked and closed, and what each state promises the reporter. The rule exists because a closed issue reads as "fixed" or "rejected" to the person who filed it. On 2026-10-11 a triage pass closed 75 feature requests into TODOS.md themes with a "not rejected" note, and reporters still saw a closed issue with no fix. Those were reopened on 2026-10-25 under the parked label, and this page is the rule going forward.

An agent triaging for the maintainer may post every comment this page describes, tag people, request reviews and leave short notes for outside authors, but only under its bot identity (capy-ai[bot] on Capy), never the maintainer's own GitHub account. On Capy, comment and tag people only through Capy's PR comment tool (tools.pr.comment), and request reviews only through tools.pr.edit; both act as capy-ai[bot]. Never comment, tag or request a review with gh pr comment, gh issue comment, gh api or gstack-post on a Capy machine: gh there runs as the maintainer's own account. Elsewhere, comment through gh only when gh api user --jq .type prints Bot. A comment no bot-identity tool can post is a draft for the maintainer instead. GitHub comments are the only way an agent reaches people for the maintainer: it never sends them email, chat messages, DMs or social posts, and never reads the maintainer's inbox (Garry, 2026-11-04: "never send emails or messages to human beings on my behalf ever"; amended 2026-11-05: "Oh you can leave comments on GitHub").

The three states

State	Meaning	How it looks on GitHub
Open	We intend to act on it and nothing is decided yet, or a lane is on it now.	Open, no parked label. next-wave marks issues accepted for the next fix wave.
Parked	We intend to fix it later, not now.	Open, labelled parked, with one comment that says where it is tracked and what fixes it.
Closed	Fixed, duplicate, or won't fix. Nothing else.	Closed with the matching reason (below).

An issue we still intend to fix is never closed. Grouping it into a theme, folding it into a tracking issue, or deciding it waits for other work are all "parked", not "closed".

Parking an issue

1. Add the parked label.
2. Post one comment with two facts: where it is tracked (the TODOS.md theme, by link, or the tracking issue such as #3137, #3138 or #3139) and what fixes it (the work that, when it ships, closes this issue). One or two sentences. No other comment is needed.
3. Add the issue number to the TODOS.md entry so the theme credits the reporter when it is picked up.

When the work ships, close the issue as fixed with the version or PR. Whatever the close reason, remove the parked label when the issue closes (gh issue edit <n> --remove-label parked), so a label:parked search lists only open parked issues. GitHub leaves labels alone when a merged PR's Closes #<n> closes the issue, so the lane that ships the fix removes the label itself. When a lane picks a parked issue up, it removes the label while it works on it (the issue is open again, with the lane on it); an issue the lane later drops goes back to parked with an updated comment.

Closing an issue

Each close names its reason in the closing comment. GitHub's close reason and the labels match:

Reason	Comment says	Close reason	Label
Fixed	the version, commit or PR that fixed it, and what changed	completed	—
Duplicate	the issue that tracks it (and that issue is open or parked; if it was already fixed, close this one as fixed too, with the same version)	duplicate (gh issue close <n> --duplicate-of <m>)	duplicate
Won't fix	why: out of scope, a different design was chosen, the premise no longer holds	not planned	wontfix

gh issue close sets only the close reason; add the duplicate or wontfix label separately with gh issue edit <n> --add-label <label>.

A duplicate of a parked issue is still a duplicate: close it with the link, and the parked issue's comment or TODOS.md entry credits both reporters. A report that no longer reproduces on current main closes as fixed when a commit, PR or version explains why (cite it, as /investigate --backlog does with already_fixed <commit>); when nothing does, it closes as won't fix with the version it was checked against and an invitation to reopen with a repro.

Labels this page uses

• parked: not fixed yet, not rejected; stays open, with a comment saying where it is tracked and what fixes it.
• tracking: a tracking issue for a theme; stays open until the theme ships.
• next-wave: accepted for the next fix wave.
• duplicate, wontfix: the two non-fix close reasons.
• needs Windows verification: a merged fix awaiting confirmation on real Windows hardware; the issue stays open until then.

Where the themes live

Parked feature requests are grouped in TODOS.md under "feature themes from the Wave 9 triage": new hosts (#3137), provider pluralism (#3138), install footprint and layout (#3139), new skills, ship/review/safety, planning reviews, state root and project identity, browser and mobile QA, prompt cost and skill shape, customization and localization, retro, and CI supply chain. Parked bugs sit under "parked in Wave 9" in the same file. Pick a theme up as a whole and credit every linked reporter in the CHANGELOG entry.

Community pull requests follow the wave process in CONTRIBUTING.md; a closed PR gets the same courtesy as a closed issue: a comment saying why and what supersedes it.