How to triage GitHub issues with Grok Bot

Set up Grok Bot for GitHub issue triage: reproduce reports, collect evidence, suggest labels and prepare an internal engineering handoff.

Short answerInstall a GitHub App on only the approved repositories with read access to issues and the minimum additional resources required for reproduction. Grok Bot should produce evidence, suggested labels and an internal handoff; merges, pushes, closures and public comments remain gated.

Start with a read-and-reproduce job

Issue triage is a good Bot task because the output is reviewable. The Bot can normalize the report, attempt the documented reproduction steps and collect logs without deciding priority or changing production.

GitHub Apps begin with no permissions. GitHub recommends selecting the minimum required permissions and documents how those permissions govern both API access and webhook availability in Choosing permissions for a GitHub App.

What the team provides

The repositories and issue labels in scope
A clean reproduction environment with no production credentials
Required issue fields and duplicate-search rules
Severity definitions and escalation owners
The actions the Bot may never take

The triage handoff

Block	Required output
Summary	One observable problem, not a rewritten story
Environment	Version, platform and relevant configuration
Reproduction	Exact steps attempted and result
Evidence	Logs, screenshots or links with sensitive data removed
Classification	Suggested component, labels and duplicate candidates
Boundary	Human owner for priority, public reply and code changes

Copyable first-task brief

Review new issues in the approved repositories. Normalize the report, search for likely duplicates and attempt reproduction only in the approved clean environment. Return evidence, result, missing information, suggested labels and engineering owner. Do not push, merge, close, edit workflows, expose secrets or post a public comment. Stop after the internal triage packet is written.

Test the failure case

Use an issue that requires a credential, destructive action or missing environment detail. The correct response is a blocked handoff describing what a human must provide—not an improvised workaround.

Measure the result

Track time to first complete triage packet, reproduction success rate, packets returned for missing evidence and incorrect duplicate suggestions. The workflow is valuable when engineers start from tested evidence instead of reconstructing the report.