Discussions Module — Skill

Purpose

Manage GitHub Discussions — surface unanswered questions, stale threads, and discussions needing maintainer attention. Help keep the community discussion space healthy and responsive.

Applicability and Tier Behavior

Tier 4 (Public, Releases): Full assessment with maximum ceremony. Closing is externally visible — prefer posting resolution comments before closing. Never auto-close external contributor discussions. Unanswered Q&A is high priority.
Tier 3 (Public, No Releases): Same as Tier 4. Discussions are public and closure is visible.
Tier 2 (Private, Code): Lower ceremony — batch approvals for stale closures are acceptable. No external visibility concern.
Tier 1 (Private, Docs): Minimal ceremony. Discussions are unlikely; if present, close stale ones with brief comment.

Execution Order

Runs as module #8 during full assessments (after Notifications, before Wiki Sync). Discussions are often lower priority than issues and PRs, so they run later.

Helper Commands

# List discussions with classification
gh-manager discussions list --repo owner/name
gh-manager discussions list --repo owner/name --limit 50

# Post a comment on a discussion
gh-manager discussions comment --repo owner/name --discussion 5 --body "Thanks for the feedback..."

# Close a discussion
gh-manager discussions close --repo owner/name --discussion 5 --reason RESOLVED

Close reasons: RESOLVED, OUTDATED, DUPLICATE.

Full assessment mode: Do not output the 💬 Discussions banner during a full assessment. Collect findings and feed them into the unified 📊 view (unanswered Q&A goes to ⚠️ Needs Attention). Use the per-module banner format only for narrow discussion checks.

Assessment Flow

Step 1: Check for Discussions

gh-manager discussions list --repo owner/name

If enabled: false:

Discussions are not enabled on this repo. If you'd like a community Q&A space, you can enable them in Settings → General → Features → Discussions.

If enabled but no discussions:

Discussions are enabled but empty — nothing to triage.

Step 2: Triage Discussions

The helper returns discussions pre-classified with needs_attention, is_unanswered, and has_no_replies flags.

Classify into categories:

Unanswered Q&A: Discussions in answerable categories (typically "Q&A") where no answer has been marked. These are the highest priority — someone asked a question and hasn't gotten a definitive answer.

No replies: Discussions with zero comments. The author is waiting for any engagement.

Stale: Discussions not updated in the staleness threshold period. May need closing or a follow-up.

Active: Recently updated, has replies — healthy.

Step 3: Present Findings

💬 Discussions — ha-light-controller

12 open discussions across 3 categories:

Needs attention (3): • 🙋 Q&A #5 "How to configure multi-zone?" — unanswered, 8 days old • 🙋 Q&A #9 "Error with firmware 2.4" — unanswered, 3 days old • 💡 Ideas #7 "Support for Zigbee devices" — no replies, 15 days old

The two unanswered Q&A items should probably get a response. Want me to draft replies, or just flag them for your attention?

(Category breakdown available on request)

Step 4: Suggest Actions

Based on the triage:

Unanswered Q&A: Suggest the owner answer directly. Claude can draft a response if the owner wants, but the owner should review and post it themselves (the helper can post via discussions comment).

Stale discussions with no activity: Suggest closing with an appropriate reason.

Resolved discussions still open: If a discussion has been answered or resolved in the comments but not formally closed, suggest closing.

Actions (Owner Approval Required)

Close Resolved Discussions

⚠️ Closing a discussion is immediately visible to all participants and cannot be undone (it can be reopened, but the close notification is already sent). On Tier 3/4 public repos, prefer posting a resolution comment first and letting the author close it if possible.

Use AskUserQuestion before closing:

Discussion #3 "How to configure multi-zone?" was answered in the thread. Should I mark it closed?

Options:

"Close as resolved" — close immediately (Tier 1/2 default)
"Post a comment, then close" — summarize resolution, then close (Tier 3/4 recommended)
"Skip — leave it open" — don't close this discussion

On close:

gh-manager discussions close --repo owner/name --discussion 3 --reason RESOLVED

Close Stale Discussions

⚠️ Closing sends a notification to all participants — on Tier 3/4 repos this is externally visible. Post a comment first so the author understands why their discussion was closed.

Use AskUserQuestion before closing:

Discussion #7 "Support for Zigbee devices" has been idle for 30+ days with no replies.

Options:

"Post closing comment, then close" — recommended for Tier 3/4 (visible to community)
"Close without comment" — appropriate for Tier 1/2 internal repos
"Skip — leave it open" — don't close this discussion

On "Post closing comment, then close":

gh-manager discussions comment --repo owner/name --discussion 7 --body "Closing this as it's been inactive for 30+ days. Feel free to open a new discussion if this is still relevant.

*Posted by GitHub Repo Manager*"
gh-manager discussions close --repo owner/name --discussion 7 --reason OUTDATED

Cross-Module Interactions

With Issue Triage

If a discussion should be converted to an issue (e.g., a bug report posted in discussions), note it but don't auto-convert — suggest the owner do it manually via GitHub UI.

With Notifications

Discussion reply notifications may overlap. The Notifications module handles them with cross-reference.

With Community Health

An active, well-maintained discussion space is a sign of community health.
If discussions are enabled but all stale, it may indicate the feature isn't being used effectively.

Configurable Policies

Setting	Default	Description
`staleness_threshold_days`	`auto` (tier default)	Days idle before flagging
`close_stale`	`false`	Auto-close stale discussions (owner still approves)

Error Handling

Error	Response
GraphQL not found	"Discussions aren't enabled on this repo."
403 on mutation	"I can't post comments or close discussions. Check PAT permissions."
Category not found	"That discussion category doesn't exist. Available categories: ..."

Presenting Findings (for Reports)

Module	Status	Findings	Actions Taken
Discussions	⚠️ Needs attention	3 unanswered, 2 stale	1 closed (outdated)

discussions