Investigating a GitHub Issue

Overview

Investigation goes beyond labels to verify the issue's claims against actual code, confirm root cause, and propose a fix direction. Output is a comment that either:

• Confirms — claims verified against HEAD, fix direction stated, ready for pickup
• Dismisses — not reproducible / already fixed / wrong premise — close it
• Needs-info — missing critical detail; tag status/needs-info and stop

Investigation ≠ triage: 30 min – hours per issue, not 5 min. Don't run it on the whole backlog. Pick issues that earn it.

When to Use

• Body is sparse (title + one-liner) — claims need substantiating
• Body references file:line that may have moved / been refactored since
• An old issue (>3 months) — verify the bug still exists at HEAD
• About to assign to a fix branch — defensible direction needed first
• The user says "investigate", "deep-dive", or "verify"