title-to-labels-action

May 10, 2026 · View on GitHub

Cleans up the titles of issues and PRs from common opening keywords

GitHub offers issue templates with pre-defined labels, but that doesn't stop users from cluttering the titles with the same piece of information already offered by labels.

This action:

removes the specified keywords at the beginning of issue titles;
optionally add related labels.

You can either run it without inputs to use its defaults or specify your own keywords/labels combination.

Title examples:

User title	➡️ Updated title	➡️ Added labels
Bug - some error happened	Some error happened	`bug` `triage`
[Feature request] prepare coffee	Prepare coffee	`enhancement`
Suggestion: add more tags	Add more tags	none, title-change only

Note: keywords in titles are only recognized if followed by one of these characters: :-)]

Usage

Note: If no inputs are supplied, the action will use the defaults.

name: Labeler

on:
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened, edited]
  issues:
    types: [opened, edited]

jobs:
  Label:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      pull-requests: write
    steps:
      - uses: fregante/title-to-labels-action@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

You can automatically install the above with ghat:

npx ghat fregante/title-to-labels-action/workflow

Inputs

Note: If no inputs are supplied, the action will use the defaults.

keywords - The keywords to look for, separed by comma or newline. Case-insensitive.
labels - The labels to apply when one of the keywords was found. Optional.
update-title - Whether to update the title by removing the keyword. Set to false to only add labels without changing the title. Default is true.

Either use one keyword per line or comma-separed values. Note: Do not use lists starting with -, Actions doesn't support them.

Examples:

name: Labeler

on:
  pull_request_target:
    types: [opened, edited]
  issues:
    types: [opened, edited]

jobs:
  Label:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      pull-requests: write
    steps:
      - uses: fregante/title-to-labels-action@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          keywords: idea
          # If you don't specify `labels`, the action will just clean up the titles from your keywords.

      # The action can be used as many times as needed in a single job
      - uses: fregante/title-to-labels-action@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          keywords: bug, bug report
          labels: bug

      - uses: fregante/title-to-labels-action@v1
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          keywords: |
            feature request
            suggestions
            enhancement
          labels: |
            enhancement

Outputs

None.

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Usage

Inputs

Outputs

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