GitHub Labels

Reference for discovering and applying labels to GitHub PRs and issues.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when...	Use something else when...
Listing available labels in a repo	Creating or managing milestones
Adding or removing labels on PRs/issues	Managing GitHub Projects boards
Creating new labels with colors	Bulk-editing many issues at once
Inheriting labels from issue to PR	Setting PR reviewers or assignees

Discovering Available Labels

# List all labels with details
gh label list --json name,description,color --limit 50

# Search for specific labels
gh label list --search "bug"

# Output as simple list
gh label list --json name -q '.[].name'

Adding Labels to PRs

# Single label
gh pr create --label "bug"

# Multiple labels (repeat flag)
gh pr create --label "bug" --label "priority:high"

# Comma-separated
gh pr create --label "bug,priority:high"

# Add to existing PR
gh pr edit 123 --add-label "ready-for-review"

Adding Labels to Issues

# Create with labels
gh issue create --label "bug,needs-triage"

# Add to existing issue
gh issue edit 123 --add-label "in-progress"

# Remove label
gh issue edit 123 --remove-label "needs-triage"

Common Label Categories

Category	Examples
Type	bug, feature, enhancement, documentation, chore
Priority	priority:critical, priority:high, priority:medium, priority:low
Status	needs-triage, in-progress, blocked, ready-for-review
Area	frontend, backend, infrastructure, testing, ci-cd

Label Inheritance Pattern

When creating a PR from an issue:

1. Read issue labels via gh issue view N --json labels
2. Apply same labels to PR: gh pr create --label "label1,label2"

This maintains traceability and consistent categorization.

Agentic Optimizations

Context	Command
List all labels (machine-readable)	gh label list --json name,description,color --limit 50
Get label names only	gh label list --json name -q '.[].name'
Add label to PR silently	gh pr edit $PR --add-label "label"
Check current issue labels	gh issue view $ISSUE --json labels -q '.labels[].name'
Inherit labels from issue to PR	`gh issue view $ISSUE --json labels -q '[.labels[].name]