backlog keeper

Maintaining a clean backlog usually falls to the wayside during active development. This skill automates the administrative overhead of GitHub Issues by syncing issue states with your actual git workflow.

What it does

• Automated labeling marks issues as "in-progress" the moment you start working on them.
• Smart issue creation identifies untracked work and offers to file new issues with context-aware titles.
• Verified closing ensures issues only close after commits are successfully pushed to the remote.
• Dependency tracking checks for blocked issues before you start work to prevent merge conflicts or logic gaps.
• Label cleanup removes progress indicators automatically when tasks are completed or set aside.

How it works

1. Identify the repo by pinning the GitHub remote to prevent acting on the wrong repository during multi-project sessions.
2. Monitor git state to detect when work is committed and pushed versus just saved locally.
3. Execute CLI commands via gh to update labels, comments, and issue statuses in real-time.
4. Trigger nudges when you mention an issue number or describe a new task that lacks a tracking number.

Frameworks & tools

This skill requires the GitHub CLI (gh) to be installed and authenticated. It operates within a standard git checkout environment and interacts with the GitHub Issues API.

Why this beats prompting it yourself

Manual prompting often leads to hallucinated issue numbers or closing tasks before they are actually pushed to the remote. This skill enforces a strict verification loop between your local git status and the remote GitHub state, ensuring the backlog remains a single source of truth.

Use cases

• Keeping project managers updated without leaving your terminal or IDE chat.
• Preventing the "stale issue" problem where tasks remain open long after the code is merged.
• Catching dependencies and blockers before wasting time on a task that isn't ready.

Known limitations

Requires an active internet connection and GitHub CLI authentication. It will defer to the Sideboard plugin if a .sideboard/meta.json file is detected to avoid duplicate actions.