Skip to content

pm validate should detect duplicate logical issue code prefixes (e.g., ISSUE-####) #235

Closed

Description

@unbraind

Summary

The pm tracker can contain multiple items with the same logical issue code prefix (for example ISSUE-004) because title conventions are not validated, which weakens auditability and causes ambiguity for governance and duplicate detection workflows.

Evidence

During a full tracker pass in 2d-bots I detected duplicate logical issue identifiers in open/closed item titles:

  • pm-0thx: ISSUE-004: No CI/CD Pipeline - Zero GitHub Actions Workflows (closed)
  • pm-52eu: ISSUE-004: No i18n/L10n Strategy for Multi-Language Support (open, now observed before rename)

This required a manual rename to avoid ambiguity and left an implicit governance gap in pm history and reporting.

Expected Behavior

pm should support a built-in validation check that detects duplicate semantic identifiers embedded in titles.

At minimum, add a check to pm validate that:

  • scans title prefixes by namespace (ISSUE-####, FEATURE-##, etc.), where applicable,
  • reports duplicates regardless of item status,
  • can be configured per project schema (strict/progressive modes),
  • provides stable remediation guidance in command output.

Reproduction

  1. Create or update multiple items with the same conventional prefix but different titles.
  2. Run pm validate (currently this should pass).
  3. Detect ambiguity only via manual search, not via standard validate output.

Suggested Fix

  • Add a --check-unique-title-prefixes or extend existing metadata validation to include title-prefix collision checks.
  • Add optional normalization config for accepted prefixes to avoid false positives.
  • Include this check in tracker health or quality audits so collisions are caught during CI.

Impact

This closes a class of PM governance defects and improves deterministic project-context semantics, especially in large ecosystems with >1000 items.

Activity

  1. unbraind commented on Jun 16, 2026

    @unbraind
    OwnerAuthor

    Shipped in #255 (merged to main).

  2. unbraind commented on Jul 11, 2026

    @unbraind
    OwnerAuthor

    pm tracker item:

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    enhancementNew feature or request

    Projects

    No projects

      Milestone

      No milestone

      Relationships

      None yet

      Development

      No branches or pull requests

      Issue actions