Create Issues Skill

Systematic workflow for creating well-structured GitHub issues from high-level requirements.

Overview

This skill transforms user requirements into a set of well-structured, dependency-aware GitHub issues. It follows a 5-phase workflow with a mandatory user approval gate before creating any issues.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• User invokes /create-issues
• User describes a feature or requirement that needs multiple issues
• User wants to plan work breakdown systematically
• User needs help decomposing a complex requirement

Workflow

Phase 1: Codebase Analysis

Read phases/analyze.md

Scan the project to understand:

• Repository structure and languages
• Module organization and patterns
• Existing test coverage
• Configuration from workflow.yaml

Phase 2: Requirement Breakdown

Read phases/breakdown.md

Systematically decompose the requirement:

• Identify discrete tasks
• Detect dependencies between tasks
• Assign complexity scores (1-5)
• Assign priorities (P0/P1/P2)
• Group by execution phase

Phase 3: Issue Proposal Generation

Read phases/propose.md

Generate detailed proposals:

• Full issue content with all fields
• Scope with specific file paths
• Acceptance criteria
• Verification commands
• Dependency graph visualization

Phase 4: User Approval Gate

Read phases/approval.md

Present proposals and wait for confirmation:

• Display formatted proposals
• User responds: yes/no/edit
• Only proceed if user explicitly approves

Phase 5: Issue Creation

Read phases/create.md

Create issues via GitHub CLI:

• Execute gh issue create for each issue
• Capture returned issue numbers
• Update dependency references
• Generate final report with links

Critical Rules

1. NEVER create issues without user approval
2. ALWAYS show full proposal details before asking for approval
3. Respect dependency order - issues with dependencies must reference actual issue numbers
4. Follow commit format - [type] subject (no colon)
5. Include verification commands - Go projects use go test ./... and go build ./...

Integration with AWK Workflow

Issues created by this skill will have the ai-task label and can be processed by:

• awkit kickoff - AWK principal workflow (spec-driven)
• /run-issues - Batch issue processing skill

⚠️ WARNING: Do NOT run /run-issues and awkit kickoff simultaneously on the same issues.

Recommended workflow:

/create-issues → (user approves) → issues created
        ↓
    Choose ONE:
        ├─ awkit kickoff (structured, spec-driven)
        └─ /run-issues (autonomous, batch processing)

Self-Check

On each phase entry, output:

[CREATE-ISSUES] <timestamp> | <phase> | loaded: <filename>

Quick Reference