About Quick Issues
Quick Issues is an automated directory designed to solve the biggest frustration in open source: finding an issue that is actually ready to be solved by a new contributor.
The Problem with Traditional "Good First Issues"
If you have ever tried browsing GitHub for beginner-friendly tickets, you have likely run into these common dead-ends:
- Ghost Claims: You find an issue, spend hours setting up the project, only to discover 5 people already commented "can I take this?" days ago.
- Abandoned Repositories: You submit a pull request, but the maintainer hasn't reviewed a PR in 6 months.
- High Blast Radius: An issue labeled "beginner" actually requires deep architectural refactoring across dozens of files.
- Heavy Setup Friction: Running the project requires 4 Docker containers, multiple paid cloud API keys, and obscure local database configs.
How Quick Issues Filters & Scores Tickets
Every 6 hours, our serverless pipeline scans GitHub repositories with active communities (>200 stars, active pushes within 14 days) and runs candidate issues through automated verification stages:
We scan issue comments from the last 14 days with semantic regex patterns to ensure nobody is actively working on the ticket, and verify no open PRs are currently addressing it.
We calculate the repository's median time from PR submission to first maintainer review. Repositories with turnaround times exceeding 7 days are filtered out so your work doesn't sit abandoned.
The runner shallow-clones the candidate repository to inspect the candidate file's import count and check for adjacent unit test files (e.g. *.test.ts, test_*.py).
Gemini 1.5 Flash analyzes the issue body and code snippet in structured JSON mode to extract setup friction, blast radius risk, an exact reproduction test command, and an overall solvability score (1–10).
Understanding the Metric Labels
Solvability Score (1 to 10)
Our assessment of how straightforward the issue is for a newcomer. Scores of 8–10 indicate isolated bug fixes with existing test coverage and clear reproduction steps that can typically be completed in 1–2 hours.
Blast Radius (Low / Medium / High)
Measures the architectural impact of the change. Low means the change is isolated to a single function or module and won't affect core framework systems. High indicates changes touching public APIs or cross-cutting configuration.
Setup Friction
What you need on your machine to start working. Zero-dependency means pure libraries with no extra services; Standard requires normal package installs (npm install, pip install); Docker required or Local DB indicates container or database dependencies.
Review Turnaround
The historical median time for the repository's maintainers to review or merge incoming pull requests.
How to Claim & Solve an Issue
- Pick an issue with a high solvability score and a setup requirement that matches your local environment.
- Click "View & Claim on GitHub" and leave a polite comment on the ticket (e.g. "Hi, I'd like to work on this issue!").
- Fork & Clone the repository to your machine.
- Run the reproduction command provided in Quick Issues to verify the test locally.
- Make your fix, verify all tests pass, and submit your Pull Request!