issues-deduplication_skill

Overview

This skill automates and guides deduplication of YouTrack issues for the IdeaVim project. It helps identify duplicate reports, consolidate related bug reports under a single primary issue, and preserve important customer and diagnostic information. The goal is cleaner tracking, better reporter communication, and fewer lost problems.

How this skill works

The skill inspects issue metadata (creation date, comments, votes, tags, state) and compares descriptions to detect duplicates or related-but-distinct reports. It enforces rules: avoid duplicating customer-tagged issues, prefer the most active issue over the oldest when warranted, and never duplicate into a closed issue without verification. It also extracts unique details and posts them to the primary issue before linking duplicates using YouTrack operations.

When to use it

• Cleaning up multiple reports of the same bug across YouTrack
• Consolidating similar crash or reproduction reports into one tracker
• Organizing an influx of reports after a release or regression
• Preparing issues for triage where many related tickets exist
• When you need to preserve customer-reported items separately

Best practices

• Keep the oldest issue by default, but choose the newer one if it has substantially more activity (comments, votes, watchers)
• Never mark an issue as duplicate if it has any customer-related tag or company-specific tag
• Do not duplicate into closed issues without confirming the problem is fixed; reopen or keep an open primary if reports persist
• Consolidate into a single primary issue (star topology) rather than creating chains of duplicates
• Before marking duplicate, transfer unique reproduction steps, logs, environment details or workarounds into the primary via comments or description updates
• Leave a courteous comment on the duplicated issue directing reporters to the primary and thanking them

Example use cases

• Five reports surfaced after a release; pick the richest, most active issue as primary and mark the other four as duplicates
• A newer report has 20 comments and 15 votes while an older one has none — keep the newer as primary
• A closed issue marked fixed receives new reports — do not duplicate into closed issue; reopen or use an open primary
• Two issues appear identical except one contains an OS-specific log — copy the log into the primary before linking