GitHub Duplicate Issue Detection

Find duplicate GitHub issues using multi-strategy search. Can be run manually or automated via GitHub Actions.

Workflow

1. Gather Issue Context

Extract key information from the target issue:

• Issue number and title
• Full body content
• Error messages or stack traces
• Keywords and technical terms
• Symptoms or behavior descriptions

2. Search Strategy

Use gh to search for related issues using multiple strategies:

• Keyword search from title and body
• Search for similar error messages
• Look for similar symptoms

3. Candidate Inspection

For each potential duplicate:

• View full issue with gh issue view <number>
• Compare:
  • Root cause (same underlying problem?)
  • Symptoms (identical behavior?)
  • Error messages (exact match or very similar?)
  • Affected components (same area of code?)

High confidence indicators:

• Identical error messages
• Same reproduction steps
• Same root cause with different descriptions
• One issue references the other

Low confidence (not duplicates):

• Similar symptoms but different causes
• Related but independent bugs
• Same component but different behaviors

4. Report Findings

If duplicates found:

Post comment on target issue:

gh issue comment <number> --body "This is potentially a duplicate of #123 and #456."

Format rules:

• Single duplicate: “This is potentially a duplicate of #123.”
• Two duplicates: “This is potentially a duplicate of #123 and #456.”
• Three+ duplicates: “This is potentially a duplicate of #123, #456, and #789.”

Only comment if high confidence (90%+ certain). When uncertain, do nothing.

Examples

Example 1: Clear Duplicate

Target Issue #150:

Title: "Dropdown menu stays open on mobile Safari"
Body: Clicking menu items doesn't close dropdown on iOS

Search process:

gh issue list --search "dropdown mobile safari"
gh issue list --search "menu doesn't close"
gh issue view 87  # Found similar issue

Issue #87:

Title: "Mobile menu not closing after selection"
Body: On iOS Safari, menu stays open after clicking items

Determination: Duplicate

• Same symptom (menu stays open)
• Same platform (iOS Safari)
• Same root cause

Example 2: Similar But Not Duplicate

Target Issue #200:

Title: "Form validation error on submit"
Error: "Cannot read property 'value' of null"

Search process:

gh issue list --search "form validation"
gh issue list --search "Cannot read property value null"
gh issue view 175

Issue #175:

Title: "Form submission fails"
Error: "Cannot read property 'email' of undefined"

Determination: Not duplicate

• Different error messages
• Different null references (value vs email)
• Related area but different bugs

Example 3: Multiple Duplicates

Target Issue #300:

Title: "Build fails with 'module not found' error"
Error: Error: Cannot find module './config'

Search results:

• Issue #250: Same error, same module
• Issue #280: Same error, same module
• Issue #290: Different module error (not duplicate)

Action:

gh issue comment 300 --body "This is potentially a duplicate of #250 and #280."