todo-issue

todo-issue is a GitHub Action that turns configured TODO-style comments into GitHub Issues.

When a pushed diff contains a configured keyword, the action creates, closes, updates, reopens, or references an issue based on how the comment changed.

/**
 * TODO Should we reinvent the wheel here?
 * We already have a good one. But could it be even rounder?
 */
function getWheel() {
    // Returns you this pizza like thing
}

Setup

name: Create issues from TODOs

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      importAll:
        default: false
        required: false
        type: boolean
        description: Import all TODOs from the checked out branch.
  push:
    branches:
      - main
      - master

permissions:
  issues: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  todos:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Run Issue Bot
        uses: juulsn/todo-issue@main
        with:
          excludePattern: '^(node_modules/)'
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Options

Name	Type	Description	Default
autoAssign	boolean, string[], string	Assign new issues. true assigns the commit author; a string or list assigns specific users; false disables assignment.	true
keywords	string[]	Keywords that produce issue titles.	TODO
bodyKeywords	string[]	Keywords allowed on following comment lines for issue bodies. Empty means same-prefix following comment lines become the body.	empty
blobLines	number, false	Number of code lines to include in the generated link range.	5
blobLinesBefore	number	Number of code lines before the TODO line to include in the generated link range.	0
caseSensitive	boolean	Match keywords case-sensitively.	true
label	boolean, string[]	Add labels. true creates/uses todo :spiral_notepad:, a string/list uses custom labels, and false disables labels.	true
reopenClosed	boolean	Reopen a matching closed issue instead of creating a duplicate reference only.	true
excludePattern	string	Regex for files or directories to exclude.	empty
titleSimilarity	number, false	Similarity percentage used to merge new TODOs into existing issues or detect small title edits.	80

Labels

Add labels with square brackets at the end of a comment:

// TODO make this button red [frontend]
// this button should be red to clarify something

That TODO creates or references an issue with the frontend label.

Import All

Run the workflow manually with importAll: true to import all TODOs from the checked out branch.

This cannot be undone automatically, so set excludePattern carefully before running it.

Styling

• Only symbols and whitespace may appear before the keyword.
• Body lines must use the exact same prefix as the title line.

//+TODO We have to do something about this
//-there is an error at line 28

The second line is not included as body text because //+ and //- differ.

Development

The project is a clean .NET solution:

• src/TodoIssue.Core contains parsing, matching, templating, and the task-system ports.
• src/TodoIssue.Action contains the GitHub Action shell and GitHub REST integration.
• tests/TodoIssue.Tests contains behavior tests using the original diff fixtures.

Run everything with:

dotnet test TodoIssue.slnx