Ticket Priority

Scitor automatically assigns priority levels to incoming support tickets using AI analysis. Priority integrates with SLA Tracking to set appropriate response and resolution deadlines.

Priority levels

Level	Label	Emoji	Typical use
Urgent	`priority:urgent`	🔴	System down, security breach, data loss
High	`priority:high`	🟠	Major feature broken, blocking issues
Medium	`priority:medium`	🟡	Bugs with workarounds, partial issues
Low	`priority:low`	🟢	Questions, feature requests, general inquiries

How it works

AI auto-assignment

When a new email or form submission arrives, Scitor’s AI analyzes the content and assigns a priority level based on:

Urgency keywords — “down”, “broken”, “critical”, “emergency”
Impact scope — single user vs. all users
Sentiment — frustrated or distressed language
Category — bug reports tend to be higher priority than questions

The AI assigns priority alongside sentiment and category. The priority label (e.g., priority:high) is applied automatically to the issue.

Manual override

Use the /priority command to view or change priority:

/priority              # Show current priority
/priority urgent       # Set to urgent
/priority low          # Set to low

When you change priority:

The old priority label is removed
The new priority label is added
If SLA tracking is active, deadlines are recalculated based on the new priority’s targets

Priority via labels

You can also change priority by adding/removing priority:* labels directly in GitHub. Scitor detects the label change and updates SLA deadlines automatically.

Configuration

Priority settings in your .github/scitor.yaml:

priority:
  auto_assign: true     # AI assigns priority automatically (default: true)
  default: medium       # Fallback when AI is unavailable (default: medium)

Key	Type	Default	Description
`auto_assign`	boolean	`true`	Enable AI priority assignment
`default`	string	`medium`	Default priority level (`urgent`, `high`, `medium`, `low`)

To disable AI priority and use a fixed default:

priority:
  auto_assign: false
  default: low

Integration with SLA

Priority levels map directly to SLA response and resolution time targets. For example:

sla:
  first_response:
    urgent: 1h
    high: 4h
    medium: 8h
    low: 24h
  resolution:
    urgent: 4h
    high: 1d
    medium: 3d
    low: 7d

When priority changes (via /priority command or label), SLA deadlines are automatically recalculated from the current time using the new priority’s targets.

Filtering by priority

Use GitHub’s label filters to find tickets by priority:

label:priority:urgent     # All urgent tickets
label:priority:high       # All high priority tickets

Combine with other labels for powerful filtering:

label:priority:urgent label:category:bug-report    # Urgent bugs
label:priority:high label:sentiment:negative        # Frustrated high-priority customers