GitHub Labels — Taxonomy and Management

GitHub Labels — Taxonomy and Management

When to Use What

Standard Label Taxonomy

Three axes: priority, type, status.

Priority Labels

Type Labels

Status Labels

gh CLI — Quick Commands

# List all labels
gh label list -R Jamie-BitFlight/claude_skills

# Create a label
gh label create "priority:p1" \
  --color "E99695" \
  --description "High priority — should be done next" \
  -R Jamie-BitFlight/claude_skills

# Edit a label
gh label edit "priority:p1" \
  --description "High priority — updated" \
  -R Jamie-BitFlight/claude_skills

# Apply labels to an issue
gh issue edit 42 -R Jamie-BitFlight/claude_skills \
  --add-label "status:in-progress" \
  --remove-label "status:needs-grooming"

PyGithub — Scripted Operations (Python)

Use PyGithub (github package) in Python scripts — never shell out to gh.

#!/usr/bin/env -S uv run --quiet --script
# /// script
# requires-python = ">=3.11"
# dependencies = ["PyGithub>=2.1.1"]
# ///
from __future__ import annotations

import os

from github import Auth, Github

gh = Github(auth=Auth.Token(os.environ["GITHUB_TOKEN"]))
repo = gh.get_repo("Jamie-BitFlight/claude_skills")

# Create a label
repo.create_label(name="priority:p1", color="E99695", description="High priority")

# Edit existing label
label = repo.get_label("priority:p1")
label.edit(name="priority:p1", color="E99695", description="Updated description")

# Apply label to issue
issue = repo.get_issue(42)
issue.add_to_labels(repo.get_label("status:in-progress"))
issue.remove_from_labels(repo.get_label("status:needs-grooming"))

@octokit/rest — Claude Code Hooks (JavaScript)

Use @octokit/rest in .cjs hook files — never use child_process to call gh.

// In a Claude Code hook (.cjs)
const { Octokit } = require('@octokit/rest');

const octokit = new Octokit({ auth: process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN });

// Apply label to issue
await octokit.rest.issues.addLabels({
  owner: 'Jamie-BitFlight',
  repo: 'claude_skills',
  issue_number: 42,
  labels: ['status:in-progress'],
});

// Remove label
await octokit.rest.issues.removeLabel({
  owner: 'Jamie-BitFlight',
  repo: 'claude_skills',
  issue_number: 42,
  name: 'status:needs-grooming',
});

Bulk Label Setup

# Creates all taxonomy labels; skips existing
uv run .claude/skills/gh/scripts/github_project_setup.py labels \
  --repo Jamie-BitFlight/claude_skills

# Force-update existing labels too
uv run .claude/skills/gh/scripts/github_project_setup.py labels \
  --repo Jamie-BitFlight/claude_skills --force

Backlog Item Priority → Issue Label Mapping

SOURCE: GitHub CLI label documentation — https://cli.github.com/manual/gh_label (accessed 2026-02-21) SOURCE: PyGithub label API — https://pygithub.readthedocs.io/en/latest/github_objects/Label.html (accessed 2026-02-21) SOURCE: Octokit.js REST — https://github.com/octokit/rest.js (accessed 2026-02-21)