work-on-issue

An agent skill that takes one work item from tracker to done: load the issue, pick a workflow template, review and clarify, update the tracker, classify the task, set up git, implement, and complete — report, PR, automated reviews, auto-fix, or babysit until merge-ready.

Works with GitHub, Jira, Linear, or a repo-local tasks.md.

Install

npx skills add akempler/work-on-issue

The CLI detects your agent (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, and others) and installs the skill into the right directory. To install for a specific agent or globally, see npx skills add --help.

Install as a Claude Code plugin instead

/plugin marketplace add akempler/work-on-issue
/plugin install work-on-issue

Install manually

Copy skills/work-on-issue/ into your agent's skills directory (e.g. .claude/skills/work-on-issue/ or .agents/skills/work-on-issue/), keeping the references/ folder alongside SKILL.md.

Use

Ask your agent to work on an issue, or invoke the skill directly:

/work-on-issue 142
/work-on-issue https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/142
/work-on-issue TASK-3

Workflow templates

The skill asks which template to use (or reads default_workflow_template from config):

	Template	Does	PR	Reviews	Auto-fix
A	Full review (full_review)	Implement, verify, report	No, unless asked	—	—
B	PR review (pr_review)	Implement, push, open a PR for you to review	Yes	—	—
C	Full auto (full_auto)	B, then automated reviews	Yes	code + security; architecture and browser QA when the change calls for them	Off by default; cap 3 rounds
D	PR + babysit (pr_babysit)	C, then loop on CI, conflicts, and PR comments until merge-ready	Yes	Same as C	On by default; cap 3 rounds, babysit cap 5

Requirements

• A tracker or a task description — gh for GitHub, MCP tools for Jira or Linear, or a tasks.md in the repo. Without one, the skill works from whatever you paste and tells you what it could not update.
• Git when the task touches the repo. Templates B/C/D also need a pushable remote and a PR host CLI (gh, glab) or REST access.

Configuration (optional)

Everything has a documented default — the skill works with no config file. To override base branch, branch naming, worktree directory, tracker, or review defaults, create .claude/work-on-issue.yaml in your project. See skills/work-on-issue/references/config.md for every key.

Layout

skills/work-on-issue/
├── SKILL.md            # the skill itself
└── references/         # progressively-loaded detail files

License

MIT — see LICENSE.