Read GitHub Issues

Browse, filter, and select GitHub issues, then download all content and images so an agent can fully understand and work on the selected issue.

Input: $ARGUMENTS

Instructions

Step 1: List Issues

If a specific issue number is provided in $ARGUMENTS, skip to Step 2.

If a search query or label filter is provided, use it:

# By label
gh issue list --label "bug" --state open

# By search
gh issue list --search "QUERY" --state open

# All open issues
gh issue list --state open --limit 30

If no filter is provided, list all open issues:

gh issue list --state open --limit 30

Display the issues in a clear format showing:

• Issue number
• Title
• Labels
• Assignee
• Created date

Step 2: Select an Issue

• If $ARGUMENTS contains a specific issue number, use that directly
• Otherwise, use AskUserQuestion to let the user pick which issue to work on
• Present the top issues as options with their titles

Step 3: Download Full Issue Content

Once an issue is selected, fetch everything:

# Get full issue details including body
gh issue view ISSUE_NUMBER

# Get all comments
gh issue view ISSUE_NUMBER --comments

# Get issue metadata as JSON for structured parsing
gh issue view ISSUE_NUMBER --json title,body,labels,assignees,comments,state,milestone,createdAt,updatedAt,author

Step 4: Extract and Download Images

1. Parse the issue body and all comments for image URLs
2. Look for patterns like:
   • ![alt](https://...) — Markdown images
   • https://github.com/user-attachments/... — GitHub uploaded images
   • https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/... — Legacy GitHub images
3. For each image found:
   • Download it to a temporary location using curl or Invoke-WebRequest
   • Save to a temp directory like $env:TEMP/gh-issues/ISSUE_NUMBER/
   • Read the image using the Read tool so Claude can see it
4. If no images are found, note that and continue

Step 5: Present Complete Issue Context

Provide a comprehensive summary including:

## Issue #NUMBER: TITLE

**State:** open/closed
**Labels:** label1, label2
**Assignee:** @username
**Created:** date
**Author:** @username

### Description
[Full issue body]

### Images
[Display all downloaded images]

### Comments (N total)
[All comments with authors and dates]

### Key Requirements
- [Extracted actionable items from the description]
- [Any acceptance criteria mentioned]

### Related Files (if mentioned)
- [Any file paths or code references from the issue]

Step 6: Offer Next Steps

After presenting the issue, ask the user:

• Would you like to implement this issue? (suggest using /developer-agent NUMBER, or /implementation-loop NUMBER to drive it through Dev+QA to merged)
• Would you like to assign it to yourself?
• Would you like to add a comment?

Important Notes

• Always use gh CLI for all GitHub operations
• Download images so Claude can actually see and understand visual bug reports
• Parse both the issue body AND all comments for complete context
• If the repo has many issues, default to showing only open ones