Auto-Triage

Kilo's Auto-Triage automatically analyses every new GitHub issue the moment it is opened. Within minutes of a reporter submitting an issue, Auto-Triage reads the title and body, checks whether the issue is a duplicate of something already reported, classifies it as a bug, feature request, question, or unclear, and applies the appropriate labels — all without any manual effort from your team.

What it does

1. Duplicate detection

When an issue arrives, Auto-Triage compares it against every previously-triaged issue in your repository using vector-similarity search. If it finds a match, it:

Posts a comment on the new issue linking to the original, including its title and similarity score.
Labels the issue kilo-triaged and kilo-duplicate.
Marks the triage ticket as actioned.

2. Classification

An AI model of your choice reads the full title and body and assigns one of four classifications:

Classification	Meaning
bug	Existing, documented functionality is broken. Includes issues with stack traces, error messages, or clear reproduction steps.
feature	A request for new functionality or an enhancement to existing behaviour.
question	The reporter is asking for help, clarification, or pointing to a gap in documentation.
unclear	The issue does not contain enough information to determine intent.

Along with the classification, the model produces a confidence score (0–1), a short summary of what the reporter wants, and its reasoning.

3. Automatic labelling

After classification, Auto-Triage applies labels to the issue on GitHub:

kilo-triaged is always applied to every issue that completes triage.
The AI selects zero or more additional labels from your repository's existing label set — it will only ever choose labels that already exist in your repo, never invent new ones.
Labels you have configured as skip labels or required labels (see Configuration below) are excluded from the AI's choices so they remain under your control.

4. Ticket history

Every triage run is recorded as a ticket in the Kilo dashboard. You can:

Filter tickets by status, classification, or repository.
View the AI's classification, confidence score, intent summary, and reasoning.
Retry a failed ticket to reprocess it from scratch.

How to enable it

Prerequisites

A GitHub integration connected to your Kilo account or organisation.
The repositories you want to triage must be accessible via that integration.

Steps

Go to Auto-Triage -> Config in the Kilo dashboard.
Toggle Enable AI Auto-Triage on.
Choose which repositories to triage:
- All repositories — every repository accessible via your GitHub integration.
- Selected repositories — only the repositories you explicitly choose.
Click Save.

From this point, any new issue opened (or reopened) in a configured repository will be automatically queued for triage.

Configuration reference

All settings are found under Auto-Triage -> Config.

Repository scope

Setting	Description
Repository selection mode	`all` — triage every accessible repository. `selected` — triage only the repositories you pick from the list.

Label filters

These settings let you control which issues Auto-Triage processes, using labels already on the issue at the time it is opened.

Setting	Description
Skip labels	If an issue carries any of these labels when it is opened, Auto-Triage will ignore it entirely. Useful for issues you handle manually, e.g. `wontfix` or `on-hold`.
Required labels	If set, Auto-Triage will only process issues that carry all of these labels. Useful for opt-in triage flows, e.g. requiring a `needs-triage` label before Auto-Triage runs.

Note: Skip labels and required labels are also excluded from the set of labels the AI can apply. This keeps gating labels strictly under your control.

AI model

The model used for classification.

Ticket statuses

Status	Meaning
pending	Queued and waiting for a processing slot.
analyzing	The AI is actively processing the issue.
actioned	Triage completed. Labels applied, duplicate comment posted if applicable.
failed	Something went wrong. The error is shown in the ticket. You can retry.
skipped	The issue did not meet the configured requirements (wrong repo, skip label present, etc.).

Labels applied by Auto-Triage

Auto-Triage uses two reserved labels for tracking. You should create these in your GitHub repositories before enabling the feature:

Label	Meaning
`kilo-triaged`	Applied to every issue that completes triage successfully.
`kilo-duplicate`	Applied alongside `kilo-triaged` when the issue is identified as a duplicate.

These labels are managed by Kilo and should not be added to your skip labels list.