Set up consistent GitHub issue types + labels across HokuNZ repos

[rowan]

What

Standardise the issue-classification setup across the HokuNZ repos so issues can be filed with a consistent type (Bug / Feature / Task / etc.) and a small set of agreed labels (severity, area, status). Hold the canonical config in dotfiles so it's reproducible across repos.

Trigger

Hit this today on HokuNZ/MailTriage while filing #161: tried to apply --label bug via gh issue create and got could not add label: 'bug' not found. The repo has no defined labels at all. Worked around it with a [v2.1.x bug] prefix in the title and a "Severity: High" callout in the body, but that's a workaround, not a system.

The deeper miss: GitHub introduced issue types (a typed classification separate from labels) in 2024. Bug / Feature / Task / etc. as first-class enum values rather than free-form strings. None of the repos currently have these configured — every issue is "untyped."

What's worth doing

Issue types (GitHub-org level)

Configure at the HokuNZ org level (Settings → Issue types) so all repos under HokuNZ inherit the same typing. Initial set:

• Bug — something broken
• Feature — new capability
• Task — work that isn't bug-or-feature (refactor, docs, infrastructure)
• Question — discussion / decision-needed (closes once decided)

Labels (per-repo, but consistent)

Labels handle orthogonal axes that types don't — severity, status, area, version. Suggested baseline labels for every repo:

Severity (for Bug-typed issues):

• severity: critical — production-affecting, ship a fix this week
• severity: high — affects shipping users, fix in current release cycle
• severity: medium — needs attention, schedule
• severity: low — nice to have

Status:

• blocked — waiting on something external (decision, upstream fix, etc.)
• needs-decision — needs a call from Rowan before any work happens
• wontfix — declined, kept for context

Per-repo area labels as needed (e.g. MailTriage might want area: imap, area: smtp, area: ui).

How dotfiles helps

• A scripts/setup-github-labels.sh (or similar) that applies the standard labels to a given repo via gh label create. Idempotent — running twice doesn't error on existing labels (use gh label create --force or check-then-create).
• A documented checklist in dotfiles/README.md (or somewhere) for "new repo setup": apply labels, configure issue types, set default reviewers, etc.
• Optionally: a .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/*.yml template set that can be copied into new repos to standardise issue forms.

Out of scope

• Migrating existing untyped issues to the new typing system. One-off cleanup; can happen as repos get touched naturally.
• Branch protection / merge rules. Different concern, separate issue if needed.

Triggering example

The MailTriage cache-invalidation bug (#161) was filed today as urgent affecting shipping users. With the system above it would have been:

• Type: Bug
• Labels: severity: high, area: ui (or area: replies)
• Title: just the descriptive part, no [v2.1.x bug] prefix needed

Currently it's typeless and unlabelled, just with the prefix-in-title workaround.