Collapse Issues

collapse-issues Skill

Identify clusters of related triaged GitHub issues sharing the same recipe:* label and collapse qualifying clusters into single combined issues. Originals are closed with cross-reference comments. This is the inverse of issue-splitter — where splitter decomposes mixed-concern issues, this consolidates related small issues into fewer, better-scoped units.

Grouping analysis is performed as in-context LLM reasoning. No parallel sessions are spawned.

When to Use

• After issue-splitter has decomposed issues into focused sub-issues, to re-consolidate overly granular results
• Invoked by triage-issues via the --collapse flag (Step 2c)
• Directly by a user who wants to reduce issue count before a batch implementation run
• With --dry-run to preview what would be collapsed without mutating GitHub

Arguments

/autoskillit:collapse-issues [--dry-run] [--min-group 2] [--max-group 5] [--repo owner/repo] [--no-label]

• --dry-run — show proposed groupings, skip all GitHub mutations
• --min-group N — minimum issues per group to justify collapsing (default: 2)
• --max-group N — maximum issues per combined issue (default: 5)
• --repo owner/repo — explicit repo; if absent, resolve via gh repo view
• --no-label — skip all label creation and --label calls

Critical Constraints

NEVER:

• Close original issues before the combined issue is successfully created
• Apply batch:N labels to combined or original issues
• Collapse issues with different recipe:* labels into one combined issue
• Delegate grouping to parallel sessions — grouping analysis is in-context LLM reasoning only
• Use parallel session spawning (Agent/Task) for grouping analysis — it is in-context LLM reasoning
• Create files outside {{AUTOSKILLIT_TEMP}}/collapse-issues/
• Skip emitting the ---collapse-issues-result--- block (emit even on error or no-collapse)
• Summarize, paraphrase, truncate, or abbreviate the body of a source issue
• Substitute a hyperlink, URL reference, or cross-reference for inlined body content
• Use angle-bracket placeholder syntax (<...>) in the combined issue body — always paste actual retrieved content from fetch_github_issue
• Use the body field from gh issue list for body assembly — only fetched_content[N] from per-issue fetch is authoritative
• Use --body inline for gh issue create when the body contains verbatim multi-issue content — always write to {{AUTOSKILLIT_TEMP}}/collapse-issues/combined_body_{timestamp}.md and use --body-file (the combined body can exceed shell arg limits and the inline form contradicts the SWITCH TO COPY MODE verbatim guarantee)

ALWAYS:

• Include --force on all label creation calls (gh label create --force) for idempotency
• Respect --dry-run (skip all GitHub mutations when set)
• Respect --no-label (skip all label creation and --label flags when set)
• Cap groups at --max-group (default 5)
• Require at least --min-group (default 2) issues to form a group
• Emit ---collapse-issues-result--- block even on dry-run or no-collapse decisions

Workflow

Step 0: Parse Arguments

Extract from ARGUMENTS:

• --dry-run → dry_run = true
• --min-group N → min_group = N (default: 2)
• --max-group N → max_group = N (default: 5)
• --repo owner/repo → repo = "owner/repo" (omit --repo flag from gh commands if not provided)
• --no-label → no_label = true

Step 1: Authenticate

gh auth status

If auth fails, emit result block with {"error": "gh auth failed", "groups_formed": 0, "issues_collapsed": 0} and exit.

Step 2: Resolve Repo

gh repo view --json nameWithOwner -q .nameWithOwner

If repo cannot be resolved, emit result block with {"error": "repo resolution failed", "groups_formed": 0, "issues_collapsed": 0} and exit.

Step 3: Fetch Triaged Issues

gh issue list --state open --json number,title,labels --limit 200 [--repo {repo}]

• Filter to issues that carry at least one recipe:* label (e.g., recipe:implementation, recipe:remediation)
• If the filtered list is empty: emit no-collapse result block and exit:

  ---collapse-issues-result---
  {"groups_formed": 0, "issues_collapsed": 0, "combined_issues": [], "standalone_issues": [], "dry_run": false, "reason": "no triaged issues"}
  ---/collapse-issues-result---
  

Step 4: LLM Grouping Analysis (in-context)

This step is pure in-context LLM reasoning — no parallel session spawning.

4a. Partition by recipe route (hard constraint):

Separate issues into per-recipe buckets. Issues with recipe:implementation form one group; issues with recipe:remediation form another. Issues with different recipe:* labels are never collapsed together into a single combined issue.

4b. Score pairwise relatedness within each bucket:

For each pair of issues in the same recipe bucket, evaluate:

• Overlapping component mentions (e.g., both mention recipe/, execution/, server/)
• Shared keywords in title/body (similar subsystem vocabulary)
• Complementary scope (e.g., two small enhancements to the same module)
• Size preference: prefer collapsing small/simple issues; large issues (long body, many sub-requirements) should remain standalone

4c. Form candidate groups:

• Greedily assign issues to groups, starting with most-related pairs
• Enforce --max-group cap per group (default: 5)
• Issues that don't fit any qualifying group remain standalone

4d. Apply minimum-group threshold:

Groups with fewer than --min-group issues (default: 2) are dissolved — their members remain standalone.

If no groups meet the threshold: emit no-collapse result block and exit:

---collapse-issues-result---
{"groups_formed": 0, "issues_collapsed": 0, "combined_issues": [], "standalone_issues": [<all issue numbers>], "dry_run": false, "reason": "no qualifying groups"}
---/collapse-issues-result---

Step 5: Fetch Full Issue Content

For each issue in each qualifying group (not standalone issues), call:

fetch_github_issue(issue_url, include_comments=true)

where issue_url is constructed as: https://github.com/{repo}/issues/{number}

Store the returned content field from the response. If fetch_github_issue returns success: false for an issue, log the failure and proceed using the issue title and a note that full body content was unavailable (do not fabricate body content).

This step produces the fetched_content[N] mapping used in Step 7b.

Step 6: Dry-run Gate

If --dry-run is set: print the proposed groups in human-readable form:

Group 1 (recipe:implementation): issues #12, #15, #18
  Proposed title: "Combined: <descriptive scope phrase>"

Group 2 (recipe:remediation): issues #7, #9
  Proposed title: "Combined: <descriptive scope phrase>"

Standalone: #3, #22, #25

Emit result block with "dry_run": true and exit without any GitHub mutations:

---collapse-issues-result---
{"groups_formed": 2, "issues_collapsed": 5, "combined_issues": [], "standalone_issues": [3, 22, 25], "dry_run": true}
---/collapse-issues-result---

Step 7: Create Combined Issues

For each qualifying group (in-context LLM reasoning for title synthesis):

7a. Synthesize title:

Write a title that describes the combined scope of all issues in the group. Format: "Combined: <descriptive scope phrase>"

7b. Build combined issue body:

Initialize the temp file:

ts=$(date +%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S)
COMBINED_BODY="{{AUTOSKILLIT_TEMP}}/collapse-issues/combined_body_${ts}.md"
mkdir -p "{{AUTOSKILLIT_TEMP}}/collapse-issues"

Write the verbatim combined body to ${COMBINED_BODY} using the Write tool (one section at a time via >> append). Write exactly this structure:

<!-- Collapses: #N, #M, #P -->

This issue combines related work originally tracked in #N, #M, and #P.

## From #N: {original title of issue N}

{Write the complete, unmodified text of fetched_content[N].body here exactly
as returned by fetch_github_issue. Do not summarize, paraphrase, truncate, or
abbreviate any part of the body. Do not substitute a hyperlink, cross-reference,
or descriptive sentence. Every heading, list item, code block, and paragraph
from the original issue body must appear here without alteration.

SWITCH TO COPY MODE: The preceding title-synthesis step required generative
reasoning. This step requires strict verbatim reproduction — do not compose or
generate new prose. Copy only.}

---

## From #M: {original title of issue M}

{Write the complete, unmodified text of fetched_content[M].body here exactly
as returned by fetch_github_issue. Do not summarize, paraphrase, truncate, or
abbreviate any part of the body. Do not substitute a hyperlink, cross-reference,
or descriptive sentence. Every heading, list item, code block, and paragraph
from the original issue body must appear here without alteration.

SWITCH TO COPY MODE: The preceding title-synthesis step required generative
reasoning. This step requires strict verbatim reproduction — do not compose or
generate new prose. Copy only.}

---

## From #P: {original title of issue P}

{Write the complete, unmodified text of fetched_content[P].body here exactly
as returned by fetch_github_issue. Do not summarize, paraphrase, truncate, or
abbreviate any part of the body. Do not substitute a hyperlink, cross-reference,
or descriptive sentence. Every heading, list item, code block, and paragraph
from the original issue body must appear here without alteration.

SWITCH TO COPY MODE: The preceding title-synthesis step required generative
reasoning. This step requires strict verbatim reproduction — do not compose or
generate new prose. Copy only.}

7c. Collect labels:

Union of all non-batch:* labels from the original issues in the group. Typically this is the shared recipe:* label plus any enhancement/bug labels.

7d. Ensure labels exist (skip if --no-label):

gh label create "recipe:implementation" --force [--repo {repo}]
gh label create "enhancement" --force [--repo {repo}]

Repeat for each unique label in the collected set (e.g., recipe:remediation, bug), always with --force.

7e. Create combined issue:

gh issue create \
  --title "Combined: <synthesized title>" \
  --body-file "${COMBINED_BODY}" \
  --label "recipe:implementation" \
  --label "enhancement" \
  [--repo {repo}]

Capture the new issue number from the URL in stdout output.

Step 8: Close Original Issues

For each original issue that was collapsed (one by one, in order):

8a. Append ## Superseded section and update body:

COLLAPSE_BODY_FILE="{{AUTOSKILLIT_TEMP}}/collapse-issues/supersede_{orig_number}_{ts}.md"
mkdir -p "$(dirname "$COLLAPSE_BODY_FILE")"
gh issue view {orig_number} --json body --jq '.body' [--repo {repo}] > "$COLLAPSE_BODY_FILE"
printf '\n\n---\n\n## Superseded\n\nCollapsed into #%s: %s' \
  "{combined_number}" "{combined_url}" >> "$COLLAPSE_BODY_FILE"
gh issue edit {orig_number} --body-file "$COLLAPSE_BODY_FILE" [--repo {repo}]
sleep 1  # Rate-limit discipline: 1s between mutating calls

8b. Close the issue:

gh issue close {orig_number} [--repo {repo}]
sleep 1  # Rate-limit discipline: 1s between mutating calls

Step 9: Emit Result Block

---collapse-issues-result---
{
  "groups_formed": <count>,
  "issues_collapsed": <total originals closed>,
  "combined_issues": [
    {"number": X, "url": "...", "from": [N, M, P]},
    ...
  ],
  "standalone_issues": [<list of issue numbers NOT collapsed>],
  "dry_run": false
}
---/collapse-issues-result---

On error, emit:

---collapse-issues-result---
{"error": "<description>", "groups_formed": 0, "issues_collapsed": 0}
---/collapse-issues-result---

Output Location

Dry-run reports (if any): {{AUTOSKILLIT_TEMP}}/collapse-issues/

Error Handling

• Auth failure → emit error result block, exit
• Repo resolution failure → emit error result block, exit
• No triaged issues → emit no-collapse result block, exit
• No qualifying groups → emit no-collapse result block, exit
• gh issue create fails → log the failure, emit partial result with "error" in rationale, do not abort silently; do not close any originals for this group
• gh issue close fails → log the failure and continue with remaining originals

Related Skills

• /autoskillit:issue-splitter — Inverse: decomposes mixed-concern issues into focused sub-issues
• /autoskillit:triage-issues — Invokes this skill via --collapse flag (Step 2c)