| name | description |
|---|---|
find-issue |
Search for existing GitHub issues that match a user's problem description. Use when someone describes a bug, feature request, or problem and wants to know if a matching GitHub issue already exists. Triggers include: "find issue", "is there an issue for", "has this been reported", "search issues", "look for issue", "check if issue exists", "find related issues", "is this a known bug", "do we have a ticket for", or any description of a problem followed by a question about whether it's already tracked. Read-only — never create, comment on, or modify issues.
|
Search the current repository's GitHub issues to determine whether a described problem is already tracked.
From the user's problem description, extract:
- Primary keywords: Core nouns and verbs (e.g., "scroll", "feed", "crash", "login")
- Synonyms/related terms: Alternative ways to describe the same problem (e.g., "scroll" → "jump", "bounce", "snap"; "outdated" → "stale", "old", "cache", "refresh")
Run multiple searches in parallel to maximize coverage. Default to --state open unless the user specifies otherwise.
Title + body search (primary):
gh search issues "<keywords>" --repo $(gh repo view --json nameWithOwner -q .nameWithOwner) --state open --json number,title,body,labels,url,updatedAt --limit 30Comment search (secondary, only when title+body yields few results or user's description is very specific):
gh search issues "<keywords>" --repo $(gh repo view --json nameWithOwner -q .nameWithOwner) --state open --match comments --json number,title,url --limit 15Run searches with multiple keyword variations in parallel. Deduplicate results by issue number.
For the top candidates, fetch full issue body if not already retrieved:
gh issue view <number> --json number,title,body,labels,comments,urlRead comments selectively — they add context but can also contain noise.
For each relevant issue, present:
| Field | Content |
|---|---|
| Issue | #number — Title (linked URL) |
| Labels | Label list |
| Match | Why this issue matches the user's description |
For the single best match, provide a comparison:
- What overlaps: Aspects of the user's description that are already captured in the issue
- What's missing: Aspects the user described that the existing issue does NOT cover — suggest the user add these details as a comment
- What's different: If the issue describes a related but distinct problem
End with a clear recommendation:
- Exact match found: "This is already tracked in #N. [summary of overlap]"
- Partial match found: "Issue #N covers part of this. Your description also mentions [X] which isn't in that issue — consider adding a comment."
- No match found: "No existing issue matches this description. This appears to be a new issue."
- Never create, edit, or comment on issues — read-only
- Default to open issues; search closed issues only when explicitly asked
- When the user's description is vague, search broadly with synonyms
- Show all relevant matches, not a fixed number — use judgment on what's truly related
- Keep the output scannable: table format for the list, prose only for the closest-match analysis