skill-issues

Track project blockers, bugs, and gaps across sessions — use when issues pile up or need triage

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Issue Tracking

Overview

Cross-session issue tracking for persistent problem management. Issues are stored in .octo/ISSUES.md and survive across Claude Code sessions.

Core principle: Track → Resolve → Learn.

When to Use

Use this skill when user wants to:

Track a problem or blocker for later
Record issues discovered during development
Review open issues across sessions
Mark issues as resolved
View details of specific issues

Do NOT use for:

GitHub issue management (use gh CLI)
Git-tracked issues (use git commands)
Temporary todos (use TodoWrite)

Subcommands

1. List Issues (Default)

Trigger: /octo:issues or /octo:issues list

Show all open issues in table format:

## Open Issues

| ID | Severity | Category | Description | Created | Phase |
|----|----------|----------|-------------|---------|-------|
| ISS-20260203-001 | high | integration | Auth not working | 2026-02-03 | Develop |
| ISS-20260203-002 | medium | performance | Slow query performance | 2026-02-03 | Deliver |

Pattern Detection: After listing, check if 3+ open issues share the same category. If so, alert:

⚠ Pattern detected: 3 open issues in category "integration" — may indicate a systemic problem.

Implementation:

Check if .octo/ISSUES.md exists
If not, initialize from template
Read and parse Open Issues section
Display in table format

2. Add Issue

Trigger: /octo:issues add <description>

Add new issue with auto-generated ID.

Flow:

Step 1: Gather Information

Use AskUserQuestion with two questions:

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [
    {
      question: "What severity is this issue?",
      header: "Severity",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "critical", description: "Blocks all progress"},
        {label: "high", description: "Significant impact"},
        {label: "medium", description: "Should address"},
        {label: "low", description: "Nice to fix"}
      ]
    },
    {
      question: "What category does this issue fall into?",
      header: "Category",
      multiSelect: false,
      options: [
        {label: "logic-error", description: "Incorrect behavior or wrong output"},
        {label: "integration", description: "Cross-component or API compatibility"},
        {label: "quality-gate", description: "Quality gate failures during workflows"},
        {label: "security", description: "Security vulnerabilities or concerns"},
        {label: "performance", description: "Speed, memory, or scalability issues"},
        {label: "ux", description: "User experience or usability problems"},
        {label: "architecture", description: "Structural or design pattern issues"}
      ]
    }
  ]
})

Step 2: Determine Current Phase

# Check if STATE.md exists
if [ -f .octo/STATE.md ]; then
  grep "current_phase:" .octo/STATE.md
else
  echo "Unknown"
fi

Step 3: Generate Issue ID

Format: ISS-YYYYMMDD-NNN

# Get today's date
TODAY=$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Find existing issues for today
grep "ISS-${TODAY}-" .octo/ISSUES.md | tail -1

# Increment sequence number
# If ISS-20260203-001 exists, next is ISS-20260203-002

Step 4: Append to ISSUES.md

Add new row to Open Issues table:

| ISS-20260203-003 | medium | performance | Slow query performance | 2026-02-03 | Develop |

Preserve existing issues - append only, don't overwrite.

Step 5: Confirm

✅ Issue created: ISS-20260203-003

**Severity:** medium
**Category:** performance
**Description:** Slow query performance
**Created:** 2026-02-03
**Phase:** Develop

View with: /octo:issues show ISS-20260203-003

3. Resolve Issue

Trigger: /octo:issues resolve <id>

Mark issue as resolved and move to Resolved section.

Flow:

Step 1: Validate Issue Exists

# Check if issue ID exists in Open Issues
grep "ISS-20260203-001" .octo/ISSUES.md

If not found, show error:

❌ Issue ISS-20260203-001 not found in open issues.

Use `/octo:issues list` to see all open issues.

Step 2: Ask for Resolution Notes

**Resolving issue:** ISS-20260203-001

Please provide resolution notes:

Step 3: Move to Resolved Section

Extract issue row from Open Issues table
Remove from Open Issues
Add to Resolved Issues with resolution date and notes

Resolved Issues format:

| ID | Severity | Category | Description | Created | Resolved | Resolution |
|----|----------|----------|-------------|---------|----------|------------|
| ISS-20260203-001 | high | integration | Auth not working | 2026-02-03 | 2026-02-04 | Fixed OAuth token refresh |

Step 4: Confirm

✅ Issue resolved: ISS-20260203-001

**Resolution date:** 2026-02-04
**Resolution notes:** Fixed OAuth token refresh

View with: /octo:issues show ISS-20260203-001

4. Show Issue Details

Trigger: /octo:issues show <id>

Display full details of specific issue.

Flow:

Step 1: Find Issue

Search both Open and Resolved sections for issue ID.

Step 2: Display Details

For open issue:

## Issue Details: ISS-20260203-001

**Status:** Open
**Severity:** high
**Category:** integration
**Description:** Auth not working
**Created:** 2026-02-03
**Phase:** Develop

**Actions:**
- Resolve: `/octo:issues resolve ISS-20260203-001`

For resolved issue:

## Issue Details: ISS-20260203-001

**Status:** Resolved
**Severity:** high
**Category:** integration
**Description:** Auth not working
**Created:** 2026-02-03
**Resolved:** 2026-02-04
**Resolution:** Fixed OAuth token refresh

Step 3: If Not Found

❌ Issue ISS-20260203-001 not found.

Use `/octo:issues list` to see all open issues.

File Management

Initialize ISSUES.md

When: First time skill is used or .octo/ISSUES.md doesn't exist.

Action:

# Create .octo directory if needed
mkdir -p .octo

# Copy template
cp ${HOME}/.claude-octopus/plugin/config/templates/ISSUES.md.template .octo/ISSUES.md

# Replace {{PROJECT_NAME}} with actual project name
PROJECT_NAME=$(basename $(pwd))
sed -i '' "s/{{PROJECT_NAME}}/$PROJECT_NAME/g" .octo/ISSUES.md

Preserve Existing Issues

CRITICAL: When adding or resolving issues, NEVER overwrite existing content.

Pattern:

# Read existing content
EXISTING=$(cat .octo/ISSUES.md)

# Modify specific section only
# Append new issue to Open Issues table
# OR move issue from Open to Resolved

# Write back with all content preserved
echo "$MODIFIED" > .octo/ISSUES.md

ID Generation Algorithm

Format: ISS-YYYYMMDD-NNN

Example: ISS-20260203-001

Implementation:

#!/bin/bash

# Get today's date in YYYYMMDD format
TODAY=$(date +%Y%m%d)

# Find all issues created today
TODAY_ISSUES=$(grep -o "ISS-${TODAY}-[0-9]\{3\}" .octo/ISSUES.md || echo "")

if [ -z "$TODAY_ISSUES" ]; then
  # No issues today, start at 001
  NEXT_NUM="001"
else
  # Get highest number for today
  HIGHEST=$(echo "$TODAY_ISSUES" | sed "s/ISS-${TODAY}-//" | sort -n | tail -1)
  
  # Increment
  NEXT_NUM=$(printf "%03d" $((10#$HIGHEST + 1)))
fi

# Generate ID
ISSUE_ID="ISS-${TODAY}-${NEXT_NUM}"
echo "$ISSUE_ID"

Severity Levels

Level	Meaning	Example
critical	Blocks all progress	Production down, data loss
high	Significant impact	Feature broken, security issue
medium	Should address	Performance degradation, UX issue
low	Nice to fix	Minor bug, cosmetic issue

Integration with Other Skills

With skill-debug

User: "track this bug for later"

1. Use skill-issues to create issue
2. Use skill-debug to investigate if time permits
3. Link issue ID in debug notes

With skill-task-management

User: "add fixing ISS-20260203-001 to todos"

1. Use skill-task-management to add todo
2. Reference issue ID in todo description
3. Mark issue as resolved when todo completes

With flow-develop

User: "implement fix for ISS-20260203-001"

1. Use flow-develop to implement fix
2. Use skill-issues to resolve issue after fix
3. Link commit SHA in resolution notes

Best Practices

1. Clear Descriptions

Good:

Auth token refresh fails after 15 minutes

Poor:

Auth broken

2. Appropriate Severity

Critical: Only for blockers that stop all work High: Significant but workarounds exist Medium: Should fix but not urgent Low: Nice to have

3. Resolution Notes

Good:

Fixed OAuth token refresh by updating expiration logic in auth.ts
Commit: abc123

Poor:

Fixed

Common Patterns

Pattern 1: Track During Development

User: "track this issue: API rate limiting not working"

Action:
1. Create issue with appropriate severity
2. Record current phase from STATE.md
3. Continue development

Pattern 2: Resolve After Fix

User: "resolve ISS-20260203-001, fixed in commit abc123"

Action:
1. Ask for resolution notes
2. Move to Resolved section
3. Record resolution date and notes

Pattern 3: Review Open Issues

User: "what issues do we have?"

Action:
1. List all open issues
2. Show severity and phase
3. Offer to show details or resolve

Red Flags - Don't Do This

Action	Why It's Wrong
Overwrite ISSUES.md	Lose all existing issues
Skip severity validation	Invalid data in file
Duplicate issue IDs	ID collision
Vague descriptions	Can't remember what issue was
Resolve without notes	No record of what was done

Quick Reference

User Intent	Skill Action	Output
"list issues"	Read and display Open Issues	Table of issues
"add issue X"	Generate ID, append to file	Issue created
"resolve ISS-X"	Move to Resolved section	Issue resolved
"show ISS-X"	Find and display details	Issue details

The Bottom Line

Issue tracking → Persistent memory across sessions
Otherwise → Forget problems, repeat mistakes

Track everything. Resolve systematically. Learn from history.

Repository: nyldn/claude-octopus
Path: .claude/skills/skill-issues/SKILL.md
Commit: 9f39f0c

Last updated: 2 days ago
First committed: 2 months ago

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