Assign Prototype Milestone

Workflow: assign-milestone.yml
Status: ✅ Active

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Overview

Automatically assigns the Prototype milestone to every new GitHub issue so nothing falls through the cracks. A workflow_dispatch trigger lets you backfill all existing open issues at any time.

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What It Does

Triggers

Trigger	Behavior
issues: opened	Assigns "Prototype" milestone to the new issue (skips if already set)
workflow_dispatch	Backfills all open issues that currently have no milestone

Logic

New issue opened
  ↓
Does it already have a milestone? → YES → skip
  ↓ NO
Assign "Prototype" milestone

workflow_dispatch (backfill)
  ↓
Get or create "Prototype" milestone
  ↓
Paginate all open issues
  ↓ (for each)
Has milestone? → YES → skip
  ↓ NO
Assign "Prototype" milestone
  ↓
Report summary

If the "Prototype" milestone does not exist, the workflow creates it automatically before assigning.

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Running the Backfill

Via GitHub UI

1. Go to Actions → Assign Prototype Milestone
2. Click Run workflow
3. Options:
   • Backfill: true (default) — processes all open issues
   • Dry-run: true — preview without making changes
4. Click Run workflow

Via gh CLI

# Preview changes (dry-run)
gh workflow run assign-milestone.yml \
  -f backfill=true \
  -f dry_run=true

# Apply changes
gh workflow run assign-milestone.yml \
  -f backfill=true \
  -f dry_run=false

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Milestone Lifecycle

Phase	Action
Prototype (current)	All new issues assigned here automatically
Future milestone	Update MILESTONE_NAME env var in the workflow, or configure GITHUB_MILESTONE_NAME in the Discord bot (.env)
Post-launch	Change the default milestone name or remove auto-assignment

Changing the Default Milestone

Two places to update when moving to a new milestone:

1. assign-milestone.yml — change MILESTONE_NAME: "Prototype" to the new name
2. Discord bot — set GITHUB_MILESTONE_NAME=NewMilestoneName in the bot's .env

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Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
MILESTONE_NAME	"Prototype"	Name of the milestone to assign
DRY_RUN	false	Preview mode (no API writes)
GH_PAT secret	Falls back to GITHUB_TOKEN	Token for API calls; use a PAT if github.token lacks milestone write permission

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Permissions

The workflow requests issues: write which is sufficient to update milestone assignments using the default GITHUB_TOKEN. No additional secrets are required for standard repos.

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Related

• Discord bot (services/bots/discord/bot.js) — also assigns "Prototype" milestone to issues created via Discord slash commands (GITHUB_MILESTONE_NAME env var)
• Issue #81 — original task that requested this workflow
• Issue #299 — bulk backfill task that prompted the workflow_dispatch trigger