/backlog
Backlog health at a glance.
Objective
Quick assessment of backlog state. Stats, staleness, priority distribution, readiness scores. Standalone — usable outside /groom.
Process
1. Fetch Issues
gh issue list --state open --limit 200 --json number,title,labels,body,createdAt,updatedAt,milestone,assignees2. Compute Stats
| Metric | How |
|---|---|
| Total open | Count of open issues |
| By priority | Count per p0/p1/p2/p3/unlabeled |
| By horizon | Count per now/next/later/blocked/unlabeled |
| By type | Count per bug/feature/task/refactor/research/epic |
| By domain | Count per domain/* label |
| Assigned vs unassigned | Count with/without assignees |
| With milestone vs without | Count with/without milestone |
3. Staleness Report
Flag issues by staleness:
- Stale (>90 days since last update, no
blockedlabel) - Aging (60-90 days since last update)
- Orphaned (no labels beyond source/*)
- Unlabeled priority (missing p0-p3)
# Issues not updated in 90+ days
gh issue list --state open --json number,title,updatedAt,labels | \
jq '[.[] | select((.updatedAt | fromdateiso8601) < (now - 7776000))]'4. Readiness Distribution
Run /issue lint --all scoring (lightweight — just parse issue bodies, don't spawn sub-agents). Report distribution:
Readiness Distribution:
90-100 (Excellent): 4 issues ████
70-89 (Good): 8 issues ████████
50-69 (Needs work): 3 issues ███
0-49 (Incomplete): 5 issues █████5. Label Hygiene
Check for:
- Legacy labels that need migration
- Issues with multiple priority labels
- Issues with no type label
- Issues missing horizon label
Output
BACKLOG HEALTH: {repo}
======================
Overview:
Total open: 20
Ready for execution (score >= 70): 12 (60%)
Needs enrichment (score 50-69): 3 (15%)
Incomplete (score < 50): 5 (25%)
Priority Distribution:
P0 (Critical): 1 █
P1 (Essential): 5 █████
P2 (Important): 8 ████████
P3 (Nice to Have): 4 ████
Unlabeled: 2 ██
Horizon Distribution:
now: 3 ███
next: 7 ███████
later: 8 ████████
blocked: 1 █
None: 1 █
Staleness:
Stale (>90d): #12, #15, #18
Aging (60-90d): #22
Orphaned (no labels): #31
Label Issues:
Missing priority: #31, #33
Missing type: #31
Legacy labels: #15 (priority/p0 → p0)
Recommendations:
1. Close or update 3 stale issues
2. Enrich 5 incomplete issues (/issue lint --all --fix)
3. Migrate 1 legacy label
4. Add priority to 2 unlabeled issuesRelated
/issue lint— Detailed per-issue scoring/groom— Phase 1 calls/backlogfor quick assessment/tidy— Automated backlog cleanup