Issue Report Filing Flow

Issue report — filing flow

This is a nested lingtai-issue-report reference. It governs everything after the report is drafted: human consent, detecting whether gh can file directly, the two filing paths, and proactive surfacing.

The boundary — permission required, always

You never open a GitHub issue without an explicit "yes" from the human. The human is the accountable owner of what gets filed under their name. Even if gh is authenticated and you have a shell, the per-issue consent is non-negotiable. Your role is to:

1. Assemble a structured report (see the report-template reference)
2. Send the report through the appropriate channel to your parent avatar (if you're an avatar) AND to the human
3. Check whether gh is available and authenticated (see "Filing path" below)
4. Ask the human's permission, naming the path you'd take (direct gh filing vs. paste-into-browser)
5. Only then act — file it via gh if they say yes, or hand them the title/body if they prefer to file manually

If the human declines, drop it. Don't nag, don't auto-retry on the next turn. Their call.

Filing path — detect gh first

Before you ask the human for permission, run a quick read-only probe to see whether the GitHub CLI is installed AND there's a way to authenticate. There are two acceptable auth sources — either is enough to make Path A available:

1. Existing gh auth — the host already has a logged-in account.
2. A GH_TOKEN the human provided this session — they pasted a personal access token into chat (or it's already in your shell env). gh reads GH_TOKEN from the environment per-invocation, so no gh auth login is needed.

Probe:

# Is gh installed?
command -v gh

# Is gh already authenticated?
gh auth status 2>&1

Interpret: gh installed and either auth source present → Path A is available. gh missing, or neither source present → Path A is out; fall through to Path B.

Do not run gh issue create during the probe. Do not echo, log, or commit the token. The probe is read-only; the actual filing happens only after the human says yes.

Path A — direct filing via gh (preferred when available)

If the probe succeeded, your permission ask becomes one of:

"I noticed [one-sentence summary]. I sent a structured report to your inbox. Your gh CLI is authenticated — with your OK, I can file this directly to Lingtai-AI/lingtai as a GitHub issue. Want me to file it, or would you rather paste it yourself?"

…or, when you're using the token they handed you:

"I noticed [one-sentence summary]. I sent a structured report to your inbox. I can file this directly to Lingtai-AI/lingtai using the GH_TOKEN you provided — the token stays in the env of this one command, never logged. Want me to file it, or would you rather paste it yourself?"

If they say file it (or equivalent — "yes", "go ahead", "do it"):

# Relying on existing gh auth. When using a human-provided token instead, prefix
# this exact command with the inline env (single command): GH_TOKEN=$TOKEN gh issue create ...
gh issue create \
  --repo Lingtai-AI/lingtai \
  --title "<your Subject line, minus the [Issue Report] prefix>" \
  --body-file <path-to-a-tempfile-with-the-rendered-body>

Notes on the gh invocation:

• Write the body to a tempfile (e.g. /tmp/lingtai-issue-<timestamp>.md) and pass --body-file. Avoid --body "<long string>" — shell quoting eats backticks, code fences, and newlines.
• Preserve the report's section headers verbatim; GFM renders them cleanly.
• The --repo value defaults to Lingtai-AI/lingtai. If the human asked for the kernel tracker (Lingtai-AI/lingtai-kernel) or names another repo, use what they said — do not silently override. For repo-choice details, see "Which repo" in the report-template reference.
• After gh issue create returns, it prints the issue URL on stdout. Quote that URL back to the human so they can verify.
• If the command errors (network blip, repo permission, rate limit, 401), tell the human exactly what gh said and offer Path B as fallback. Do not retry silently. On 401, the token may be expired — don't keep retrying with it.
• Token hygiene (Path A with GH_TOKEN): keep the token in the env of the single gh command, never echo it back in chat or logs, never write it to a file, never include it in the issue body or commit message. Delete the body tempfile after filing.

If they say paste it myself, use Path B even though gh is available.

Path B — hand off title + body for manual filing (always works)

When gh is unusable, or when the human prefers manual filing, the ask is:

"I noticed [one-sentence summary]. I sent a structured report to your inbox. If you'd like to file this as a GitHub issue, I can format it for you. The tracker is https://github.com/Lingtai-AI/lingtai/issues. Should I prep the title + body?"

If they say yes:

• Format the report into a GitHub-flavored markdown issue body (preserve the section headers; they render cleanly)
• Provide the title (your Subject line, minus the [Issue Report] prefix)
• Provide the URL: https://github.com/Lingtai-AI/lingtai/issues/new
• Tell them to paste; don't try to do it yourself

If they say no or are silent: stop. Don't bring it up again unless the same issue blocks you in a future turn.

Proactive surfacing — don't wait to be asked

When you identify an issue that meets the "When to invoke" criteria (see the evidence-checklist reference), surface it immediately — don't wait for the human to ask you to file a report. The correct sequence is:

1. You diagnose the problem (as part of your normal work)
2. You apply a workaround or fix (if possible)
3. You proactively tell the human: "I ran into [brief summary]. Want me to file a GitHub issue about it?"
4. Yes → follow the filing path above; no → drop it

The human should never have to guess that you found a bug. Your job is not just to fix — it's to surface.

Signs you should proactively offer:

• You spent more than 2 turns diagnosing an unexpected error
• The workaround you used is not documented anywhere
• The bug would affect other agents or users, not just you
• You discovered the fix requires a restart, manual file edit, or other non-obvious step
• The issue contradicts what the documentation claims

Found a bug or issue? If you encounter any problems with this skill, load the lingtai-issue-report skill and follow its instructions to report it.