calculate-priority-score

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Calculate priority score for bugs, issues, or tasks based on severity, impact, and likelihood. Use for bug prioritization, task ordering, or risk assessment.

⭐27stars🔀8forks📁View on GitHub🕐Updated Dec 30, 2025
[Project Management]

When & Why to Use This Skill

The Calculate Priority Score skill is a data-driven tool designed to streamline issue triaging and task prioritization. By evaluating three key dimensions—severity, impact, and likelihood—it generates a standardized numeric score and priority level (P0-P4). This ensures objective decision-making in software development and project workflows, helping teams identify critical blockers and optimize resource allocation effectively.

Use Cases

  • Software Bug Triaging: Standardize how development teams rank incoming bugs to ensure 'breaking' issues are addressed immediately while lower-impact bugs are backlogged.
  • Agile Sprint Planning: Quantitatively order backlog tasks to help Product Owners and Managers decide which features or fixes provide the most value for the next sprint.
  • Security Vulnerability Management: Assess the risk of security findings by scoring their potential impact and the likelihood of exploitation to meet compliance and safety standards.
  • Operational Incident Response: Quickly categorize IT incidents during outages to determine the appropriate level of escalation and response urgency based on system impact.
namecalculate-priority-score
descriptionCalculate priority score for bugs, issues, or tasks based on severity, impact, and likelihood. Use for bug prioritization, task ordering, or risk assessment.

Calculate Priority Score

Calculate numeric priority score and category for issues based on multiple factors.

When to Use

  • Bug prioritization
  • Security vulnerability risk assessment
  • Task ordering
  • Resource allocation decisions

Instructions

Step 1: Receive Issue Attributes

Accept issue attributes as input.

Expected Input:

{
  "severity": "critical|high|medium|low",
  "impact": "breaking|major|minor|none",
  "likelihood": "certain|likely|possible|unlikely"
}

Step 2: Load Scoring Matrix

Use scoring matrix to assign points.

Severity Scores:

  • critical: 10
  • high: 7
  • medium: 5
  • low: 2

Impact Scores:

  • breaking: 10
  • major: 7
  • minor: 3
  • none: 0

Likelihood Scores:

  • certain: 10
  • likely: 7
  • possible: 5
  • unlikely: 2

Step 3: Calculate Total Score

Sum all factor scores.

Formula: score = severity + impact + likelihood

Range: 0-30

Step 4: Determine Priority Category

Map score to priority category.

Priority Categories:

  • P0 (Critical): 25-30

    • Label: "Critical - Immediate Action Required"
    • Action: Drop everything, fix now

  • P1 (High): 19-24

    • Label: "High - Fix This Sprint"
    • Action: Prioritize in current sprint

  • P2 (Medium): 12-18

    • Label: "Medium - Schedule for Next Sprint"
    • Action: Include in backlog, address soon

  • P3 (Low): 5-11

    • Label: "Low - Schedule When Convenient"
    • Action: Nice to have, low priority

  • P4 (Minimal): 0-4

    • Label: "Minimal - Consider Closing"
    • Action: May not be worth fixing

Step 5: Return Scored Result

Return complete priority assessment.

Expected Output:

{
  "score": 27,
  "category": "P0",
  "label": "Critical - Immediate Action Required",
  "factors": {
    "severity": 10,
    "impact": 10,
    "likelihood": 7
  },
  "recommendation": "Drop everything, fix now"
}

Error Handling

  • Invalid Severity: Return error listing valid values
  • Invalid Impact: Return error listing valid values
  • Invalid Likelihood: Return error listing valid values
  • Missing Factor: Return error requesting all factors

Examples

Example 1: Critical Bug

Input:

{
  "severity": "critical",
  "impact": "breaking",
  "likelihood": "certain"
}

Output:

{
  "score": 30,
  "category": "P0",
  "label": "Critical - Immediate Action Required",
  "factors": {
    "severity": 10,
    "impact": 10,
    "likelihood": 10
  },
  "recommendation": "Drop everything, fix now"
}

Example 2: Medium Priority Issue

Input:

{
  "severity": "medium",
  "impact": "minor",
  "likelihood": "likely"
}

Output:

{
  "score": 15,
  "category": "P2",
  "label": "Medium - Schedule for Next Sprint",
  "factors": {
    "severity": 5,
    "impact": 3,
    "likelihood": 7
  },
  "recommendation": "Include in backlog, address soon"
}

Example 3: Low Priority Enhancement

Input:

{
  "severity": "low",
  "impact": "minor",
  "likelihood": "unlikely"
}

Output:

{
  "score": 7,
  "category": "P3",
  "label": "Low - Schedule When Convenient",
  "factors": {
    "severity": 2,
    "impact": 3,
    "likelihood": 2
  },
  "recommendation": "Nice to have, low priority"
}

Example 4: High-Impact but Unlikely

Input:

{
  "severity": "high",
  "impact": "breaking",
  "likelihood": "unlikely"
}

Output:

{
  "score": 19,
  "category": "P1",
  "label": "High - Fix This Sprint",
  "factors": {
    "severity": 7,
    "impact": 10,
    "likelihood": 2
  },
  "recommendation": "Prioritize in current sprint"
}

Validation

  • Calculates score correctly
  • Maps to correct priority category
  • Handles all valid factor values
  • Returns clear recommendations
  • Validates input factors

Supporting Files

  • scoring-matrix.json: Factor scoring rules (see Supporting Files section)