Issue Triage Policy

This document defines mandatory issue/PR governance for backlog consistency and semantic-release alignment.

Objectives

• Keep issue triage deterministic across contributors.
• Make priority and scope explicit before implementation starts.
• Align issue/PR metadata with release impact (major|minor|patch|semver:none).

Required Labels

Every issue and PR must include:

• one type:* label
• one priority:* label
• one area:* label
• one semver label (major, minor, patch, or semver:none)

Optional status labels:

• status:triage
• status:ready
• status:in-progress
• status:blocked
• status:needs-info

Priority Model

• priority:P0: critical blocker, data loss, security exposure, or release stopper.
• priority:P1: high-impact issue or core workflow feature/fix for current cycle.
• priority:P2: important but not blocking; can ship in next cycle.
• priority:P3: backlog, roadmap, or low urgency work.

Milestone Model

• Now (P0-P1): active execution lane.
• Next (P2): near-term queue after current lane.
• Later (P3/Backlog): long-horizon items and roadmap containers.

Semver Guidance

• major: breaking change.
• minor: backward-compatible feature.
• patch: backward-compatible bug fix.
• semver:none: no direct release impact (meta/docs/process).

Note:

• semantic-release is driven by commit messages (feat:, fix:, ...).
• labels provide planning and governance context; they do not replace conventional commits.

Automation

• Issue forms are required (.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/work-item.yml).
• Issue Label Sync workflow applies triage labels from issue form values.
• PR Governance workflow blocks PRs that do not satisfy mandatory metadata rules.

PR Title and Body Rules

• Title must follow Conventional Commits:
  • feat(scope): summary
  • fix: summary
  • docs: summary
• Body must reference at least one issue:
  • Closes #123
  • Fixes #123
  • Related #123