suggest-next-issue

Suggest Next Issue

Analyze open GitHub issues and recommend what to work on next.

Give a focused terminal answer. For a persistent view of the full backlog, lanes, dependencies and work in progress, use the publish-report-board skill's backlog-triage board. Both use the shared progress model to distinguish available work from work in progress.

Options

The user may provide these options inline:

• label filter: Focus on issues with a specific label (e.g., "suggest next bug" or "suggest next issue --label enhancement")
• milestone filter: Focus on issues in a specific milestone
• limit: Number of recommendations (default: 5)
• include PRs: Also consider open PRs needing attention (reviews, conflicts, CI failures)
• --parallel-only: Recommend only issues that can run beside the work already under way, excluding any whose verification needs an exclusive resource another worktree holds

Treat a request that asks for parallel-safe work in its own words as --parallel-only, whether or not the flag was typed: "what can I work on in parallel", "what can I start alongside this", "anything that does not need the DAW". The user asked for the restriction; requiring the flag as well would answer a question they did not ask.

Workflow

1. Gather Context

Run these commands to build a complete picture:

# Open issues (with details for analysis)
gh issue list --state open --json number,title,labels,assignees,createdAt,updatedAt,comments,milestone,body,author --limit 1000

# Recently closed issues (understand momentum)
gh issue list --state closed --json number,title,labels,closedAt --limit 10 --sort updated

# Current branches/worktrees (what's already in progress)
git worktree list
git branch --list --format='%(refname:short) %(committerdate:iso-strict) %(authoremail)'
git branch --remotes --format='%(refname:short) %(committerdate:iso-strict) %(authoremail)'
# Branches with commits beyond the default branch, which gh repo view below names
git branch --all --no-merged "origin/DEFAULT_BRANCH" --format='%(refname:short)'

# Open pull requests (how far along each piece of work is)
gh pr list --state open --limit 1000 --json number,title,headRefName,isDraft,reviewDecision,mergeable,mergeStateStatus,statusCheckRollup,reviewRequests,latestReviews,closingIssuesReferences,createdAt,updatedAt,author,files

# Recently merged pull requests (work merged on an issue still open), most
# recently updated first, so a recent merge of an old pull request is inside
# the limit
gh pr list --state merged --search "sort:updated-desc" --limit 300 --json number,title,body,mergedAt,closingIssuesReferences,author,files

# Merged pull requests that mention an issue carrying an "in progress" label,
# in their body, a comment or a commit; run once per such issue
gh api --paginate "repos/OWNER/REPO/issues/NUMBER/timeline" --jq '.[] | select(.event == "cross-referenced") | .source.issue | select(.pull_request.merged_at != null and .repository.full_name == "OWNER/REPO") | .number'

# Current authenticated user and git identity (for affinity)
gh api user --jq '.login'
git config user.email
git log --branches --remotes=origin --no-merges --since='30 days ago' --fixed-strings --regexp-ignore-case --author="$(git config user.email)" --name-only --format='commit %h %cI'
# Files changed on each of the user's branches with unmerged work, for tier 1
# affinity; run once per branch the listings above show as theirs and unmerged
git diff --name-only "origin/DEFAULT_BRANCH...BRANCH"

# Project context
gh repo view --json description,defaultBranchRef