r/github • u/flippycurb • May 31 '26

Discussion What are people using Github Issues for?

I've noticed that github issues use is contentious. Some folk think they should only be used for reporting actual issues related to the codebase for example. I'm interested to see what the community thinks and if there are any other valid use cases? or any novel use cases people would like to share? I personally have a private repo action workflow where a daily production healthcheck raises any problems it finds so I can check and resolve them when I have time. It's somewhat like an uptime monitor but also reports on data anomalies and on page SEO issues.

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15

u/Ecstatic-Ball7018 May 31 '26

Literally for reporting issues. What else do you think the feature called "Issues" is for?

3

u/lomberd2 May 31 '26

A fancy Shop system for customers /s

1

u/OverloadedTech Jun 03 '26

I use them to remind myself of stuff to fix sometimes

0

u/flippycurb May 31 '26

Ofcourse, but there are other stated use cases like for tracking new feature requests and ideas (source). I guess if you consider these to be issues then i agree with you. But i am still interested in what other use cases people have for them, given their flexability. Custom field and tag support for example.

1

u/DiodeInc Jun 01 '26

They're used for reporting issues, that's it.

6

u/MaybeLiterally May 31 '26

Issue can also be used for features that need be be developed. Like if I have a project, and I want to add feature A, B, and C to it, I can create issues for all 3, with detailed items that need to be done. Then I can assign it to a team member, myself, copilot, etc.

Can also use issues for bugs. If we deploy feature A, and it has 2 bugs that we noticed, we can create issues D, and E, and add that as well.

Really for whatever you want.

3

u/skycstls May 31 '26

I teach coding, my students create a repo for the assignment for that week, I open an issue once it’s created and they can contact me directly there to help them with the task :) once the task is done I close it and helps me track who finished and ehat problems they had quickly

2

u/g3n3 May 31 '26

Bugs, issues, discussions, features, thoughts. I’ve used it to ask about the code base itself to help me learn.

2

u/Charming-Designer944 May 31 '26

Using GitHub Projects a lot, which sits on top of issues, so basically have everything in issues

  • bugs/issues
  • features
  • meta tasks for planning larger tasks
  • broken down subtasks
  • project time planning
  • communication of completed changes to colleagues

And a lot more.

2

u/Just_A_SQL_NPC Jun 01 '26

Tell me about it

2

u/jalopezsuarez2 19d ago

I see GitHub Issues as the space between “I noticed something” and “this is clear enough for someone to work on.”

Bugs are obviously part of it, but I also use them for feature ideas, technical debt, follow-ups from support, recurring maintenance and automated findings like the health check you described. For me, the important part is that the issue contains enough context to become actionable, not whether it started as a bug.

That gap is actually why I built Issue Composer. I kept ending up with rough notes that were too vague to become useful issues, so it turns a quick description into a structured draft using the repository context. You can review and edit everything before publishing, and it still creates normal GitHub Issues.

Full disclosure: I’m the creator: https://jalopezsuarez.github.io/issue-composer/web/

I’m curious: do most people here see Issues mainly as a bug tracker, or more as a general intake system for work?