work-items: audit issue-creation paths — items must be labeled/typed at birth

[kyle-sexton]

Locked in 2026-07-17 triage interview. decompose/track add output is 'born triaged — labeled at creation', yet #260–#287 (and this session's #301/#303/#304) carry no labels or types: creation paths bypass the labeling contract (raw gh issue create from sessions, or the flows not applying labels).

Work: trace how recent unlabeled issues were actually created; close the gap so every issue-creating surface (work-items skills, other plugins' filing steps, ad-hoc session creates) applies Issue Type + governed labels at birth, deterministically (template/script through the tracker seam, not prose reliance). Creation-time conformance is the up-front half; the backlog sweep issue is the reactive half.

Related

• Backlog-conformance sweep (reactive half of the same gap)

Members (cluster-routed here per triage rule 3 — one decision carrier)

• work-items: add backlog-conformance sweep — deterministic detection, propose-only agent, on-demand loop #307 (work-items: add backlog-conformance sweep — deterministic detection, propose-only agent, on-demand loop) — the reactive-half issue this issue's own body already names; same underlying labeling-at-birth gap, two ends of the same fix.

[kyle-sexton]

Decision brief — issue-creation labeling gap (2-min read)

Human-operator lane. This is a brief only — no labels changed, nothing closed.

Problem

decompose / track add are documented as producing issues "born triaged — labeled at creation," but that contract is asserted in prose, not enforced at the create call. Several real batches (#260–#287, plus #301/#303/#304) landed with no labels or type, because some creation surfaces route around the labeling taxonomy entirely.

What's verified today

Old issues — partial catch-up, gap still live. Created 2026-07-17; checked today (2026-07-20):

• Still bare: refactor(source-control): extract babysit from pull-request into its own skill #260, refactor(debugging): rename diagnose skill to debug #268, refactor(knowledge): rename youtube skill to youtube-digest #275, Source the standards-managed machine-path pattern bodies in the guardrails path-detection lib #301 (zero labels, 3 days on).
• Retro-labeled by triage since: disk-hygiene:clean misses underscore-prefixed temp dirs and unowned agent-session files at a home-directory root #287 (priority:low, status:ready), education: add explain skill — one-shot plain-language altitude drop with teach handoff #303 (priority:medium, status:ready), program: fresh-eyes checkpoint audit — tag skill actions for same-context bias and retrofit delegation #304 (priority:medium, needs-human, wayfind:design).
• So triage swept some by hand; the refactor(...) batch is largely still unlabeled. The gap is present-tense, not historical.

How the bare batch was created (traced). #260 and #268 bodies cite decomposition of a PLAN contract — docs/topics/shadowed-skill-renames/PLAN.md (PR #256) — with refactor(<area>): <what> titles. That is /work-items:decompose-shaped output, and today's decompose SKILL.md:162 explicitly promises these are "born triaged." They landed unlabeled anyway. Conclusion: the batch was created either before the label step existed or through a create loop that bypassed the seam — proving the "born triaged" contract is prose-reliant, not deterministic at the create call (exactly the issue's thesis).

Which creation paths label today (repo at 49c2ae5):

• Compliant — full taxonomy at birth via seam create-item: decompose (plugins/work-items/skills/decompose/SKILL.md:109-162, --labels "area:…,$META_LABEL" + --type); track add (plugins/work-items/skills/track/actions/add.md:42-87, defaults priority:p3-low,category:general + type/area/role).
• Partial — pass one --label but not the full taxonomy: claude-ops known-issues (skills/known-issues/context/action-create.md:115); planning plan-template (skills/plan/context/plan-template.md:319) and wayfind (skills/wayfind/context/tracker-mechanics.md:43-52).
• Bypass — raw gh issue create, no label: code-tidying batch-simplify (SKILL.md:163) and tidy (reference/scope-budget.md:52) else gh issue create fallback; bug-report (skills/write/SKILL.md:103); docs-hygiene audit-encapsulation (SKILL.md:38).
• Unreachable by any client wrapper: raw session gh issue create, web-UI, external contributors. The GitHub adapter confirms no server-side default exists — "Issue Forms auto-labeling fires only on web-form creation, not gh issue create — apply labels explicitly when creating programmatically" (plugins/work-items/tools/work-item-tracker/adapters/github/README.md:280).

This is a defense-in-depth problem — two of the three layers already have issues

Creation path	(a) seam-routing #308	(b) CI floor #506	(c) sweep #307
work-items decompose / track	already ✓	✓	✓
other-plugin fallbacks (code-tidying, bug-report, docs-hygiene)	✓ after fix	✓	✓
raw session gh issue create	✗	✓	✓
web-UI / external contributor	✗	✓	✓

• (b) = automation: auto-apply 'priority: needs-triage' to new issues lacking a priority label #506 (open, priority:high, status:needs-decision): issues: opened workflow stamps priority: needs-triage when no priority label present. The only layer that catches every path — including the raw/web/external creates that produced refactor(source-control): extract babysit from pull-request into its own skill #260–disk-hygiene:clean misses underscore-prefixed temp dirs and unowned agent-session files at a home-directory root #287. Cheapest; universal floor. Reversible (remove workflow). Limit: guarantees only the one queue label, not type/area/role.
• (c) = work-items: add backlog-conformance sweep — deterministic detection, propose-only agent, on-demand loop #307 (open, priority:medium): periodic backlog-conformance sweep, propose-only. Reactive net for whatever slips the two above. The work-items: audit issue-creation paths — items must be labeled/typed at birth #308 body already clusters work-items: add backlog-conformance sweep — deterministic detection, propose-only agent, on-demand loop #307 as "the reactive half."

Options to close #308's own slice

• (a) RECOMMENDED — Route every path we own through the seam, and make the seam stamp a triage-floor label when the caller omits priority. Point the bypassing fallbacks (code-tidying, bug-report, docs-hygiene) at create-item (or require --label) instead of raw gh issue create, and have the seam default a priority label when none is supplied. Delivers born-fully-triaged (type + area + role) — the value automation: auto-apply 'priority: needs-triage' to new issues lacking a priority label #506 structurally cannot. Reversible (prose + seam edits, no data migration). Limit: cannot reach raw-session / web / external creates — it needs automation: auto-apply 'priority: needs-triage' to new issues lacking a priority label #506 as the floor beneath it.
• (b) CI/webhook backstop — this is automation: auto-apply 'priority: needs-triage' to new issues lacking a priority label #506, already filed; don't re-scope it here.
• (c) Periodic unlabeled-issue sweep — this is work-items: add backlog-conformance sweep — deterministic detection, propose-only agent, on-demand loop #307, already filed as the reactive half; don't re-scope it here.

Recommended relationship between #308 and #506 — DO NOT merge

Three complementary layers, not competing options. #506 is not a superset of #308: a CI backstop can only stamp priority: needs-triage (drops the item into the triage queue); it cannot make an item born with its type, area, and role. So #308's creation-path fix delivers value #506 can't.

Suggested sequence:

1. automation: auto-apply 'priority: needs-triage' to new issues lacking a priority label #506 first — universal floor, catches the exact failure that produced refactor(source-control): extract babysit from pull-request into its own skill #260–disk-hygiene:clean misses underscore-prefixed temp dirs and unowned agent-session files at a home-directory root #287, cheapest.
2. work-items: audit issue-creation paths — items must be labeled/typed at birth #308(a) — upgrade the paths we own so items are born fully-classified and the floor rarely fires.
3. work-items: add backlog-conformance sweep — deterministic detection, propose-only agent, on-demand loop #307 — periodic net for anything that still slips.

Net: #308's unique surviving deliverable, given #506 and #307, is (a) — the client-side creation-path audit. Keep #308 as that; keep #506 as the server-side floor; keep #307 as the reactive sweep.

One open sub-question for the operator: the floor label's axis — #506 keys on priority:* and stamps priority: needs-triage, while track add's current create-time default is priority:p3-low. Decide whether the seam's new default should be needs-triage (routes to triage queue) or p3-low (assumes triaged), so (a) and #506 agree rather than fight.

[kyle-sexton]

Frontier disposition (drain session)

Ruling: Close as not planned.

Label-at-birth is triage's ongoing responsibility, not a standing audit program.

Re-open trigger: When untyped issue creation causes a measured autonomous pickup incident.