Tendrillable

tendrillable

Given a GitHub repository, find issues that are Tendrillable: an open, recent issue that an agent can read, plan, and one-shot into a working code change - with no clarifying questions and a high probability of success. Output a ranked list of issue URLs.

Invocation

/tendrillable <githubUrl> <amount>

• <githubUrl> - repo URL (https://github.com/owner/repo) or owner/repo.
• <amount> - how many Tendrillable issue URLs to return (default: 10).

This is a high-precision classifier. Returning fewer than <amount> is correct and expected when the backlog doesn't have enough qualifying issues. Never pad the list with marginal issues - a false positive that an agent can't actually one-shot is worse than a short list.

The Tendrillable definition

A Tendrillable issue can be fully resolved from the repo + the issue text alone - no human in the loop, no missing context, and no judgment call about what to build. The agent cannot ask questions, so anything the issue leaves implicit must be inferable from the issue and the codebase.

Necessary conditions - ALL must hold

1. Open - and not already solved-in-flight (not assigned, no linked/"fixes #" PR, no "fixed in " comment).
2. Requires code - the fix means writing/changing source code. Excludes docs-only, questions, support requests, dependency-bump/release chores, CI-config-only asks.
3. Unambiguous outcome - there is effectively one correct end-state. A bug with steps-to-reproduce + expected-vs-actual is ideal; a feature qualifies only if the desired behavior is fully specified.
4. Localized - small blast radius (ideally one subsystem / a handful of files). Excludes "redesign X", broad refactors, cross-cutting rewrites.
5. Verifiable - success is checkable, ideally by a test the agent can write/run or an obvious behavioral check.
6. Self-contained - no external blockers: no credentials/API keys/paid services, no upstream wait, no product/design decision, no special hardware to reproduce.

Disqualifiers - ANY one fails the issue regardless of score

• An active debate thread (multiple proposed approaches, maintainer disagreement) or labels like needs discussion, rfc, wontfix, question, invalid, duplicate.
• Vague symptom with no reproduction ("crashes sometimes", "feels slow").
• Open-ended investigation (flaky test, perf-regression hunt, "why is X happening?").
• Security-sensitive (wants responsible disclosure).
• Requires tribal/roadmap knowledge not present in the repo.

Positive signals (rank these higher)

• Labels: good first issue, good-first-issue, help wanted, bug (with repro).
• Recency - recent issues run against a codebase that still matches HEAD, so the agent's plan won't be invalidated by drift. Prefer newest.
• A clear "expected behavior" / failing snippet / stack trace in the body.
• Healthy repo (builds, has tests) so the agent can validate.

Execution steps

Phase 0 - Setup

1. Normalize <githubUrl> to OWNER/REPO.
2. Default AMOUNT=10 if not provided.
3. Confirm gh auth status succeeds. If not, tell the user to run ! gh auth login and stop.

Phase 1 - Pull candidates (mechanical, cheap)

Pull more candidates than requested (newest first) so the judgment pass has room to reject:

REPO="OWNER/REPO"
AMOUNT=10
CANDIDATES=$(( AMOUNT * 5 < 50 ? 50 : AMOUNT * 5 )); [ "$CANDIDATES" -gt 200 ] && CANDIDATES=200

gh issue list -R "$REPO" --state open --limit "$CANDIDATES" \
  --json number,title,body,labels,assignees,createdAt,updatedAt,comments,url \
| jq -c '
    map(. + {lbl: ([.labels[].name] | map(ascii_downcase))})
    # drop assigned (likely in progress)
    | map(select((.assignees|length) == 0))
    # drop obvious non-code / non-actionable by label
    | map(select((.lbl | any(IN(
        "question","discussion","needs discussion","needs-discussion",
        "documentation","docs","wontfix","wont-fix","duplicate","invalid",
        "rfc","needs info","needs-info","needs more information","stale","blocked"
      ))) | not))
    # newest first
    | sort_by(.createdAt) | reverse
  '

Notes:

• gh issue list returns issues only (PRs are excluded), so no extra PR filtering is needed.
• Keep each candidate's number, title, body, labels, createdAt, comments, url.

Phase 2 - Classify (agent judgment)

For each surviving candidate, read the title + body and evaluate against the rubric:

1. Check every necessary condition (1–6). If any fails → REJECT.
2. Check disqualifiers. If any fires → REJECT. (Skim the comment count: many comments often signals debate - if comments is high, read enough to confirm there's no unresolved disagreement.)
3. If it passes, assign a Tendrillability score 0–100:
   • Base on how cleanly the conditions hold (clear repro + expected/actual + localized + testable ≈ 80–100).
   • Apply positive signals (good-first-issue label, recency, failing snippet) as boosts.
   • When genuinely uncertain whether the agent could one-shot it → score it lower or reject. Bias toward precision.

Keep enough survivors past this pass to backfill (Phase 2.5 will drop some).

Phase 2.5 - Verify not solved-in-flight (MANDATORY)

The gh issue list label/assignee filter does not catch issues that already have a linked PR. An open or merged PR cross-referencing an issue means the work is done or in progress - never return those. In practice this catches a meaningful fraction of otherwise-perfect candidates, so it is a hard gate, not an optional check.

For every issue that passed Phase 2 (process the top scorers first; you only need AMOUNT survivors), run the timeline check below. Drop any issue whose verdict is DROP (has an OPEN/MERGED linked PR, or has become assigned). Then backfill from the next-highest Phase-2 survivors and re-check those, until you have AMOUNT KEEPs or run out.

check_pr() {  # usage: check_pr OWNER/REPO ISSUE_NUMBER
  local repo="$1" num="$2" owner="${1%%/*}" name="${1##*/}"
  gh api graphql -f query='
    query($owner:String!,$name:String!,$num:Int!){
      repository(owner:$owner,name:$name){
        issue(number:$num){
          assignees(first:5){ totalCount }
          timelineItems(itemTypes:[CROSS_REFERENCED_EVENT,CONNECTED_EVENT], first:50){
            nodes{ __typename
              ... on CrossReferencedEvent{ source{ __typename ... on PullRequest{ number state } } }
              ... on ConnectedEvent{ subject{ __typename ... on PullRequest{ number state } } } } }
        } } }' -f owner="$owner" -f name="$name" -F num="$num" \
  | jq -r --arg num "$num" '
      .data.repository.issue as $i
      | [ $i.timelineItems.nodes[] | (.source // .subject) | select(.__typename=="PullRequest")
          | select(.state=="OPEN" or .state=="MERGED") | "PR#\(.number)(\(.state))" ] as $prs
      | "#\($num)\tassignees:\($i.assignees.totalCount)\tlinkedPRs:\(if ($prs|length)>0 then ($prs|join(",")) else "none" end)\tVERDICT:\(if ($prs|length)>0 or $i.assignees.totalCount>0 then "DROP" else "KEEP" end)"
    '
}
# Example: for n in 5592 5384 5560; do check_pr navidrome/navidrome $n; done

Notes:

• Only OPEN/MERGED linked PRs disqualify - a CLOSED (unmerged) PR means a prior attempt was abandoned, which is fine.
• A merged PR usually means the issue is already fixed but not yet closed; an open PR means someone is mid-flight. Both → DROP.

Phase 3 - Output

1. Sort accepted issues by score descending, tie-break by recency (newest first).
2. Take the top AMOUNT.
3. Print a short assessment table (for transparency), then the deliverable: a clean list of URLs, one per line.

## Tendrillable issues for OWNER/REPO  (N of AMOUNT found)

| score | age | labels | title | url |
|------:|-----|--------|-------|-----|
| 92 | 3d | bug | Crash when … | https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123 |
| ... |

### URLs
https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123
https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/456

If fewer than AMOUNT qualify, say so explicitly and return only the qualifying URLs. If zero qualify, report that the backlog has no Tendrillable issues right now and (briefly) why the top candidates were rejected.

Principles

• Precision over recall - every URL returned must be one an agent can realistically one-shot. When in doubt, leave it out.
• No questions - the whole point is issues solvable without clarification; if you would need to ask the reporter something, it's not Tendrillable.
• Recent wins - prefer fresh issues that still match HEAD.
• Explain rejections - when the list is short, a one-line reason per top rejected candidate helps the user calibrate the rubric.