Issues

A tracker that agents can use. Issues is a Linear-style list and board for work in your workspace, with the difference that the assistant can file, triage, expand and close items through tools — so “I found three problems while reading this” becomes three real cards instead of a paragraph you will lose.

Open it from the app rail for the fullscreen app, or from the Issues button in the Code sidebar rail to embed it beside your code.

Views

• List — one dense row per issue, grouped (status by default). Click a column header to sort inside a group when ranks are equal or missing. Alt+↑/↓ still writes a manual rank. Drag an issue onto another issue to make it a sub-issue. Click a status, priority, assignee, or project cell to edit it in place.
• Board — kanban lanes by status. Drop a card onto another card to nest it. Drop onto empty column space to change status. Shift+←/→ moves the focused card across columns.
• View → Needs review — a saved view of issues that arrived from an agent, a crash, or GitHub and have not been reviewed yet. Y accepts (backlog), N or Backspace declines (canceled).
• View → Agent work shows issues with an assigned agent, including completed work. My open issues shows open issues assigned to you or left unassigned. All issues includes completed issues. Switching views resets the filter chips to that view’s defaults while keeping workspace scope and search. The filters below the selector refine the results.

Working with issues

Capture with the quick-capture field in the header, or New issue (C) for the full form (title, type, priority, labels, description). When Workspace scope is All workspaces, the new-issue form includes a Workspace picker (Scratch plus recent folders). New issues start in Backlog. Expand uses the fields you have entered to suggest a title, description, labels, and priority directly in the form. Review or edit the proposal, then select Create.

Ctrl/Cmd + I opens the same full form over your current app. Expand and Create saves the issue and closes the form, then expands its title, description, type, priority, and labels in the background. You can keep working or create another issue while it runs. Fields you edit on the saved issue are preserved; if expansion fails, the original issue remains saved.

Select several rows with Ctrl/Cmd+click, or a range with Shift+click. The selection bar can change status, priority, assignee, labels, and project, or delete. Shift+F10 or right-click opens the row menu: new issue, open, copy ID, expand, add a sub-issue, remove from parent, send to chat, status, priority, type, assignee, project, labels, and delete. Linked issues also offer Open in GitHub. Code’s files toolbar has an Issues pane with quick capture and the same menu; View opens the issue inside that pane and Edit in Issues opens it here.

Right-click blank space in the list or board for Filters (type, status, priority, project, and show/hide done) and New issue. New issue opens the full form for you to fill in; it does not copy the clicked issue or column.

The Created column shows issue age, such as 1hr, 3 days, or 1 month. Hover for the exact creation time; select the column heading to sort by creation time.

j / k (or the arrows) move the focused row. Enter opens a floating issue panel over the list for the description and history. Use the header ↑ / ↓ buttons or Up / Down keys to browse the current filtered and sorted list without closing the panel. Navigation stops at either end, and arrow keys keep their normal behavior while editing or using menus. The position indicator shows the issue’s place in the list. The header control next to Close maximizes the panel; select it again to restore its size. Click the dim area or press Escape to close the panel and return to the list. The peek Sub-issues section lists children: New creates one from a title, Existing attaches another issue, and Remove unparents without deleting. A child peek shows a Parent chip that opens the parent. Chats lists sessions started or attached from the issue (title, Running or Done, mode). Open jumps to that chat in Code. A board tied to the issue or to one of those chats is a sibling row. New starts a General chat the same way Send to chat does; Existing attaches a session you already have. Remove unlinks only.

Edit labels inline on the row: up to three chips stay visible, a caret opens the rest, and + opens a typeahead. Type a name and press Enter (or comma) to add it; the popover stays open so you can add more. Click away or press Escape when you are done. The chip × removes it from that issue. Right-click a chip to pick a color; that color applies to every issue with the same name.

The floating panel keeps the issue title, chat activity, workflow actions, and Issue / Work / Chat / Activity tabs pinned. The Issue tab places the description and comments beside a rail of properties, labels, and linked resources; narrow panels stack these sections. Review work opens the Work tab, while View all in the comments section opens Activity. Delivery controls appear in the Work tab. Empty code links, attachments, and git collapse to one add row each; Plan and Related appear only when they have something to show. Sub-issues and Chats stay visible so you can add a child or attach a session on an empty card. The more menu next to Close holds Copy issue — the whole card as Markdown (fields, description, notes, code and git links, related issues, sub-issues, attachments, and comments) for pasting elsewhere — plus sub-issue actions and Delete.

Label suggestions come from issues in the same workspace, including completed issues. In All workspaces, each issue keeps its own workspace’s suggestions; a new issue uses the destination selected in its Workspace picker. Expand uses the same workspace label suggestions.

List rows, board cards, and the peek header show GitHub · Needs push for local changes awaiting sync and GitHub · Conflict for known sync conflicts. With Two-way mirror enabled, unlinked issues show GitHub · Not synced. These indicators use the last sync watermark; changes made on GitHub are checked when synchronization runs.

Drop or paste images into the description to include visual context, including while creating a new issue. Images are stored locally and shown inline. Agents receive those images when they read the issue description or attachments.

Type in the description to edit it. The formatting toolbar appears while the description is focused. Ctrl/Cmd+Enter commits; Escape commits and lets the panel close.

Nested lists, HTML, and other blocks outside the rich-text format show an Edit source field. Type directly in that field to change the Markdown or HTML. Changes save when you leave the description or submit the issue, and untouched blocks keep their original formatting.

Projects group and filter issues inside this app. They are not Orchestrator boards. The Group control can bucket the list by project, and each project shows a closed/open count.

Agents can link related, blocking, or duplicate issues with issue_link; those links appear under Related issues in the detail panel. Parent and child cards use parentId (peek Sub-issues, list nesting, and the Sub column), not Related.

Handing an issue to an agent

This is what the app is for.

Activity chips in the detail header are live; clicking one opens the agent drawer or board chat behind it.

General, Build, Plan, and Debug all expose issue_* tools. Debug also has local diagnostics. Plan can file, update, and attach a plan path to a card; it still cannot edit application code.

Reviewing and delivering agent work

The dense list and board keep the existing filters, grouping, inline properties, and bulk actions. The Agent column shows linked chat activity, including Running, Needs input, completed turns, and failures. The Agent work view includes issues with linked chats as well as assigned agents and boards.

The detail panel has four tabs. Issue keeps the description, attachments, code and Git links, sub-issues, linked chats, and comments. Work shows changed files, the diff, source and destination branches, and delivery actions. Chat shows the linked conversation, live output, tool results, and agent questions; reply there to request changes. Activity shows the issue’s recorded events. Open in Code opens the full chat workspace.

Starting a Build or Debug chat moves the issue to In progress. When its implementation turn completes successfully, it moves to Review, provided another linked chat is not still running and the issue has not been moved to another status. Failed, stopped, General, and Plan turns do not perform that handoff.

Choose Review work to inspect the checkout. Commit commits the listed changes, including staged and untracked files. For an isolated worktree, Commit & merge or Merge delivers into the issue workspace’s checked-out branch. Review the commit message and cleanup choice before confirming. Local workspace work offers commit only. A destination with uncommitted changes must be committed or stashed first; changes to either reviewed branch or the source files require a refresh and another review.

Remove worktree and branch after merge is selected initially for worktrees created for the chat. Successful delivery moves the issue to Done, records the commit, and retains the conversation and activity. Cleanup removes only clean, merged work; failures show Retry cleanup. Conflicts preserve the committed source work and its worktree. Resolve in chat prepares a request for the agent; review and send it, then inspect the resulting changes again. Verification details remain in the linked chat.

Git conventions

Issues have workspace-specific ids like MIN-12 (configure the prefix under Settings → Apps → Issues → Issue IDs). Legacy ISS-* ids still work. Minnow uses the id on each card consistently:

• Branch: issue/<id>-<slug> (slug derived from title)
• Commits are found by searching for [MIN-12] (or your key)
• Plans live at documentation/plans/issues/<id>.md
• Pull requests go through the gh CLI when it is installed, with GitHub links appearing on the issue
• Review PR (when gh is available and a PR can be resolved) runs an in-app reviewer and shows the verdict on the issue. Reviews are not posted to GitHub.
• GitHub sync (Settings → Apps → Issues → GitHub) is Off or Two-way mirror. When it is on, the Issues header shows Sync all to import missing open and closed GitHub issues into Triage, push unlinked cards, and sync linked issues in one pass — scoped to the Workspace scope control (current workspace vs all workspaces). The peek Git section can also push a new issue, sync a linked one, and import open GitHub issues into Triage. Sync automatically (under Two-way mirror) pushes title, description, labels, type, priority, status, project assignment, sub-issue parent links, and comments as they change, creates a GitHub issue when you add a local issue or edit those fields on an unlinked card, and checks linked open issues every 5 minutes while Minnow is running — including in the background. Unchanged closed issues are checked once a day; editing one still syncs promptly. When GitHub rate limits requests, sync pauses until its reset time and retains pending local edits. It does not backfill every unlinked card when you turn it on. Labels sync by name; if a name is not in the GitHub repo yet, Minnow creates it. Chip colors stay in Minnow. Open uses your system browser, not the in-app browser. If both sides changed since the last sync, the most recent change to the synced fields wins automatically; equal timestamps use GitHub. Successful background sync stays quiet. Changes to local-only fields such as rank, assignee, or chat links do not show Needs push.

Minnow stores its categorization and comment timeline in a versioned HTML comment at the end of the GitHub issue body. Importing on another machine restores custom taxonomy entries, projects, and comments without adding the metadata to the visible description. These fields use Minnow metadata, rather than GitHub native issue types, Projects fields, sub-issue relationships, or discussion comments. Keep the metadata block when editing the body on GitHub. GitHub open/closed changes still control whether an issue is closed. Sync parents before children; Sync all imports missing issues before syncing existing cards and syncs parents first. When syncing an individual child, import its missing parent first. Bodies over 65,536 characters report an error instead of being truncated.

Deleting a linked issue asks whether to remove the GitHub issue too. Local only keeps GitHub unchanged; Delete everywhere removes the GitHub issue first and then the local card. Check Remember to reuse either choice. Turn Ask before deleting linked issues back on under Settings → Apps → Issues → GitHub to restore the prompt.

When a board finishes work on an issue, the issue moves to review rather than closing itself.

Taxonomy

Settings → Apps → Issues defines your project key (new auto-ids) and your types, statuses and priorities.

Statuses carry semantic roles and flags: which lanes appear on the board, and which count as closed, so workflows can resolve “the triage status” without hard-coding your names. Types and statuses each have an icon you pick in that table (same Flaticon set). Types also have a color swatch — built-in kinds (bug, task, idea, note, feature, improvement) start with distinct colors, and Add type picks the next unused swatch so new kinds are not grey. Status chips show the icon next to the name. You can delete an entry only when nothing references it.

Keep the taxonomy small. Humans and agents share this vocabulary, and every extra status is another thing for both to get wrong.

Automatic bug filing

Settings → Advanced → Health & diagnostics → File renderer errors to Issues turns uncaught interface errors into bug cards automatically. It is off by default. Errors are logged locally and visible in the diagnostics viewer either way.

Related

• Modes
• Code app
• Orchestrate boards

When Issues is open in a separate window, Send to chat, linked chats, plans, and files open in the Code window for that workspace. Files opens the workspace file tree inside Issues.