# Triage

Classify inbound work, reduce duplicates, and route items to the right owner or workflow.

Triage is the intake stage of the [Software Factory](/software-factory/overview). It turns incoming issues, threads, and alerts into routed engineering work with enough context for a Droid or teammate to act.

Use Triage when the team needs a repeatable path from "someone reported something" to "the right workflow owns it."

<Info>
  Triage is in Private Preview. To request access, fill out the form at <a href="https://factory.ai/contact">factory.ai/contact</a> or contact your Factory account team.
</Info>

## What Triage does

Triage connects intake signals to Software Factory stages:

1. **Ingest** work from connected systems such as [Linear](/software-factory/linear), [Slack](/software-factory/slack), GitHub, and support channels.
2. **Classify** the request by type, priority, repository, owning team, and likely workflow.
3. **Reduce duplicates** by comparing new work against recent issues, related threads, and open pull requests.
4. **Route** the item to a teammate, queue, Droid session, or [Automation](/software-factory/automations).
5. **Measure** throughput, backlog, and cycle time in the [Software Factory dashboard](/software-factory/overview).

## When to use it

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Issue intake" icon="list-check" href="/software-factory/linear">
    Classify and route Linear issues before they become stale backlog.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Slack requests" icon="comments" href="/software-factory/slack">
    Turn team threads into tracked engineering work with the right context attached.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Bug reports" icon="bug">
    Group duplicate reports, identify the likely owning surface, and start remediation.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Automation handoff" icon="rotate" href="/software-factory/automations">
    Send repeatable triage decisions into scheduled or trigger-based workflows.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Triage metrics

The Software Factory dashboard tracks both intake volume and routing health.

| Metric | What it indicates |
| --- | --- |
| Throughput | How many requests Triage classified in the selected time range. |
| Backlog | Items still waiting for an owner, duplicate decision, or next workflow. |
| Cycle time | Time from intake signal to routing decision. |
| Health | Whether the connected intake sources and automations are ready to run. |

## What to connect first

Start with the systems where work already arrives:

| Source | What Triage reads | Common route |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Linear | Issue title, description, comments, labels, project, and status | Owning team, implementation session, or duplicate closure |
| Slack | Channel, thread, links, and requester context | Incident response, bug investigation, or follow-up issue |
| GitHub | Repository, issue, pull request, and CI context | Code review, QA, security review, or AutoWiki |

After the first source is connected, add a narrow automation before broadening coverage. A good first workflow is "classify new bugs in one team queue and route only high-confidence matches."

<RelatedLinks>
  <RelatedLink href='/software-factory/slack' title='Slack'>
    Turn Slack threads into tracked engineering work.
  </RelatedLink>
  <RelatedLink href='/software-factory/automations' title='Custom Automations'>
    Route triage decisions into automations.
  </RelatedLink>
</RelatedLinks>