enhancement: comment-on-unready-assigned-issue should tell the user what to do next

[captainsafia]

Summary

When oz-agent is assigned to an issue that is not labeled ready-to-spec or ready-to-implement, the current workflow posts a message that explains the situation but offers no guidance on what the user should do:

This issue is assigned to me, but it is not labeled ready-to-spec or ready-to-implement, so there is no work to do yet.

Then oz-agent removes itself as an assignee. The user is left with an unassigned issue and no actionable next step.

Reproduction scenario

1. A contributor or maintainer assigns oz-agent to an issue that hasn't been labeled yet
2. oz-agent posts the above message and removes itself
3. The user has no idea:
   • Who can add the necessary label (maintainers only)
   • Which of ready-to-spec vs ready-to-implement is appropriate
   • Whether they should ask a maintainer to add the label, or wait

Impact

This is especially confusing for new contributors to a repo using oz-for-oss, who may be trying to ask Oz to start working on an issue. They assigned oz-agent hoping to trigger something, but instead they get a terse message with no clear path forward.

Expected behavior

The message should:

1. Explain which label is needed and who can add it (maintainers)
2. Link to the CONTRIBUTING.md guide
3. Optionally suggest posting a comment asking a maintainer to label the issue if the contributor believes it's ready

Example:

This issue is assigned to me, but it is not labeled ready-to-spec or ready-to-implement, so I don't have a task to start yet.

To get me working on this issue:

• Ask a maintainer to add ready-to-spec (if this needs a product/tech spec first), or
• Ask a maintainer to add ready-to-implement (if the approach is clear and ready for code)

See the contribution guide for more details on how readiness is decided.

[oz-for-oss]

@captainsafia

I've finished triaging this issue. A maintainer will verify the details shortly. You can view the triage session on Warp.

Maintainer details

I concluded that enhancement to enrich the unready-assignment message with actionable next steps (which label is needed, who can add it, and a pointer to CONTRIBUTING.md)..

Triage summary

Thanks for the clear proposal. This looks like a straightforward enhancement to the comment-on-unready-assigned-issue workflow.

Classification: enhancement, area:workflow, repro:high.

Where the message lives

The terse "no work to do yet" message is the hardcoded completion string in .github/scripts/comment_on_unready_assigned_issue.py (around lines 42–44), invoked by .github/workflows/comment-on-unready-assigned-issue-local.yml when oz-agent is assigned to an issue that does not yet carry ready-to-spec or ready-to-implement.

Likely shape of the fix

• Update the completion string to describe the two possible readiness labels, note that maintainers are the ones who apply them, and link to CONTRIBUTING.md (which already describes how readiness is decided in the "Who decides readiness" section).
• Keep the self-unassignment behavior as-is.
• Update test_comment_on_unready_assigned_issue.py (or add a new test) to cover the new message content so the guidance text does not drift silently.

Reproducibility: High — the behavior is deterministic from a static string in a single script.

Suggested reviewer: @captainsafia (owner of .github/scripts/ and CONTRIBUTING.md per STAKEHOLDERS).

No follow-up questions — the expected behavior in the report is specific enough to implement directly.

This is my automated analysis and may be incorrect. A maintainer will verify the details.

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