v1.5.0

[github-actions[bot]]

Added

• A set-up in four steps, without looking up a hash. install takes the commit and the tag of the release from its own clone, so git clone --depth 1 --branch vX.Y.Z and install are enough; it refuses the object of an annotated tag, which git ls-remote lists first, with the commit to use instead, and a commit or tag that isn't its checkout, whose templates it writes. install --setup also creates the environment issue-assistant on GitHub, for the default branch only, and has the GitHub CLI ask for the engine's secret. install now writes everything that check asks for: the section What happens with your issue in SUPPORT.md (in German for a file such as SUPPORT.de.md) where it doesn't name the AI yet, the runner of the AI and the ignored queue in an existing .github/actionlint.yaml, and, together with the starter labels, a bug report form with an Area field for a repository without issue forms, whose answers the labels area: setup and area: docs map. Each step looks first, so running install again changes nothing but the workflows. The README's set-up ends with a step that tries the assistant on an existing issue as a dry run, and turning off GitHub's auto-close of issues by merged pull requests is a step of its own.
• When a workflow or the firewall policy doesn't fit, check names the commands that write the templates of its release anew.
• Your own lifecycle in a new section [lifecycle] of config.toml: the days until the reminder (remind_after_days, 15) and the closing (close_after_days, 30) of an issue without an answer, until a sure duplicate closes (duplicate_grace_days, 3), the window after a release in which the reporter's comment reopens the issue (reopen_after_release_days, 30), and how often the AI follows up (max_follow_ups, 2). The comments name the days that you set, in English and German, and so does the section What happens with your issue that install writes. check names a period that can't work, such as a closing before the reminder, and a description of needs-info, stale or possible-duplicate in labels.toml that names other days.
• Exempt issues: the sweep never reminds or closes an issue with a label of exempt_labels, pinned and security unless you set others, and, if you like, one assigned to someone (exempt_assignees) or with enough 👍 (exempt_upvotes).
• Old threads can lock: with lock_closed_after_days, the sweep locks issues closed for longer as resolved, with one line that points to a new issue, 25 in a sweep. It never locks before the window after a release is over, an exempt issue, or one that someone unlocked. It is off unless you set it.
• A maintainer digest in the summary of the morning sweep: the open issues that wait on the maintainers (triage pending for more than 3 days, a reporter's answer, an objection to a duplicate notice), those that wait on their reporters with the day of the reminder or the closing, and the fixed ones that wait for a release, each a link, the longest waiting first and, among those of a day, the one with the most 👍.
• How well the assistant does, on the first day of each month and in every sweep started by hand: for the 30 days before, the analyses posted, the median time from a new issue to its analysis, how many labels of the AI the maintainers kept and how many they added, what became of the duplicate notices and of the questions to reporters, and the 👍 and 👎 on the analyses. The summary holds numbers and links only, never the text of an issue.
• Slash commands: maintainers steer the assistant from the issue, with a comment whose first line is the command. /assistant again asks for a new analysis, /assistant ask and a question gets the AI's answer from the code, checked as every answer before it is posted, /assistant duplicate #12 starts the closing of a duplicate after duplicate_grace_days (3 by default) and /assistant not-duplicate stops it, /assistant waiting marks the issue as waiting for its reporter, and /assistant mute and /assistant unmute keep the AI from starting anything on its own on the issue and let it again. The reporter may say not-duplicate, and ask once for a new analysis while the issue waits for triage, within the limits of the day. A 👀 on the comment shows that the command was carried out, a 😕 that it was refused, and the run says why. Run install again, which adds the task maintainer-question to Run workflow.
• Answers in the reporter's language. Besides English and German, the assistant now writes French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch, with its own words from a catalog for each language in locales/, including the days of the lifecycle and the dates of reminders, such as 2 novembre 2026. In any other language, the AI writes in it and the headings and the footer stay English, with dates such as 2026-11-02. The reminders, closings and release notes of the sweep keep the language of the analysis, which its hidden marker records, and before an analysis the reporter's own words decide. A new language is one more file in locales/; the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch texts are machine drafts that native speakers are welcome to improve.
• Each task runs with its own model, turns and budget, from [engine] in config.toml. light_model runs the replies to one comment, which only say whether a maintainer's comment waits for the reporter or whether a problem persists after a release, on a cheaper model; max_turns (40) bounds a first analysis and a maintainer's question, a follow-up gets half of it and a reply a tenth, where every task had 40 turns before; max_budget_usd ($1.00) stops a run at that cost, so that no issue can make one run cost more; and effort sets how much a model thinks. check refuses values that the engine can't run with. The summary of every analysis job shows in one line, numbers only, what the run cost: its turns, time, dollars and tokens, also after a failure, with a warning that names the setting when the run stopped at its turns or its dollars. Install the workflows again to get it.

Changed

• The rules of the assistant are the engine's system prompt, apart from its task, instead of the start of one prompt in which the issue's own words competed with them. context writes them into .issue-assistant/rules.md, and its output prompt keeps both for the workflows of earlier releases until you install them again.
• Every analysis and follow-up says what it is and asks whether it helped. Its footer links How the assistant works, the part What happens with your issue of your SUPPORT.md, or of the first file of [transparency] files, and asks for a 👍 or 👎 on the comment; the summary of the morning sweep, or of one started by hand, counts them for the analyses and follow-ups of the last 30 days, as numbers only. On a duplicate notice, the footer says that a 👎 also keeps the issue open, as before.
• A long analysis keeps its questions in view: more than three links to related issues and files fold into one line below the questions, such as Where to look: 5 links, that opens them. A reminder links the comment with the questions that it reminds of.
• The comments speak of the maintainers, not of one maintainer, and the information needed says that an answer reopens the issue if it closes, not while it is still open.
• An analysis reads a window of the repository instead of every issue and pull request: every open issue, the 1,000 closed issues and the 1,000 discussions that changed last, and for a new issue up to 30 older issues that a search for its errors and the words of its title finds, so that old duplicates are still found. In a repository with tens of thousands of issues, the context stays small and takes a few calls to GitHub instead of hundreds. [context] max_issues and max_discussions in config.toml set the numbers. Each other issue comes with an excerpt of 400 characters, the pull request that fixed it, and its whole text for the AI to read when the excerpt looks promising.
• Deciding whether a maintainer's comment waits for the reporter, or whether the reporter's comment after a release says the problem persists, reads only the issue and that comment, no longer every issue and discussion of the repository.

Fixed

• A link to a line of a Markdown file, or of another file that GitHub shows rendered, such as reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, a notebook or an SVG picture, opens the file's source at that line. Before, it opened the rendered page, where a line has no anchor. A path with a backtick stays one piece of code in its link.
• Issues and discussions that the AI names as #123 stay links when they exist, up to ten of them, as the prompt asks it to name them. Before, every number but those of the duplicates and related issues showed as code.
• An issue that waits for its reporter closes on the day that its reminder names. The morning sweep starts a few minutes later on some days than on others, and when it started later on the day of the reminder than on the day it named, the issue closed a day late. The waiting now counts days of the calendar, in UTC, and the reminder records its day.
• An answer by an edit of the issue, which the questions offer, ends the waiting also when the event workflow missed it, so the issue no longer closes as unanswered, and a run again of the analysis no longer marks it needs-info. A second edit after a follow-up gets its own follow-up, as a second comment does.
• A new title is no answer. Fixing a typo in it removed needs-info, stopped the reminder and started a follow-up of the AI with nothing new to read.
• A comment of the reporter reopens an issue that closed for a missing answer also when an answer came in while the sweep closed it and took its labels. An issue that closed in another way since its last reopening stays closed.
• No follow-up is posted once a maintainer joined the conversation while the AI wrote it.
• A comment that someone else writes while the AI reads the reporter's comment after a release, such as "still broken for me too", no longer reopens an issue whose reporter just confirmed the fix: the AI judges the comment that started its run, not the newest one, and the issue reopens only for a comment of its reporter. In the same way, only the maintainer's comment that started the run can mark an issue as waiting for its reporter.

Every pull request of this release

Features

• /assistant commands for maintainers and reporters (#118) (bbb22ae)
• a maintainer digest and monthly quality numbers in the daily sweep (#120) (ebae9ab)
• answer reporters in their language, with the texts in locale files (#124) (70d4321)
• comments that explain themselves, take feedback and link every file correctly (#110) (0f068b3)
• lifecycle: configurable waiting periods, exemptions and locking of old threads (#116) (0ada1dc)
• per-task model, turns and budget, the rules as system prompt, and the cost of every run in the summary (#126) (f5bc6b2)
• setup: install without looking up hashes, set up the environment in one command, and try it right away (#108) (970c1b7)

Bug fixes

• lifecycle: keep the reminder, reopen and follow-up promises (#103) (3bdd0d9)

Performance

• build the engine's context from a capped GraphQL window and only what each task needs (#114) (3bd4cf9)

Compare with the previous release

---

This discussion was created from the release v1.5.0.