Issue Triage BYOK vs Dosu

Both put AI on your new GitHub issues. Dosu is a hosted assistant that answers questions from your docs and past threads, labels and flags duplicates. Issue Triage BYOK is a single GitHub Action: on every new issue it posts one comment with a likely cause, a concrete fix and a test to add, using your own OpenAI-compatible key. Here is where each one is the better choice.

Who Dosu is

Dosu is an AI assistant for maintainers and engineering teams, installed as a GitHub App. On issues it drafts replies from your documentation, past issues and discussions, applies labels learned from your history and flags possible duplicates; it also generates and maintains documentation. It is free on public open-source repositories; the paid Pro plan is listed at 16 USD/month (192 USD billed upfront) with private repositories and Slack, Confluence, Notion integrations. Dosu has also open-sourced dosu-ai/auto-label, a labeler you run in your own GitHub Actions (GitHub Agentic Workflows, default engine Claude Haiku with your own key).

Sources, checked Sept 2026: dosu.dev/pricing · dosu.dev/oss · dosu.dev auto-labeling post · github.com/dosu-ai/auto-label

Side by side

Dosu column: dosu.dev/pricing, dosu.dev/oss, checked Sept 2026. Prices change; check the source before deciding.

Try it in 1 minute

# .github/workflows/issue-triage.yml
name: Issue triage
on:
  issues:
    types: [opened]
permissions:
  issues: write
jobs:
  triage:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: issue-triage-byok/issue-triage-action@v1
        with:
          ai-api-key: ${{ secrets.AI_API_KEY }}
          # ai-base-url: https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions
          # ai-model: gpt-4o-mini
          # skip-labels: question,duplicate
          # license-key: ${{ secrets.TRIAGE_LICENSE_KEY }}   # Pro

Save it as .github/workflows/issue-triage.yml, add your provider key as the repository secret AI_API_KEY (Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions), open a test issue. Want to see the output first? Add dry-run: true and the comment is printed in the job log instead of posted.

FAQ

Can I use both? Yes. They do not conflict: Dosu can answer from your knowledge base while the action adds a cause/fix/test comment. Use skip-labels if you want the action to leave some issues alone.

Is Dosu's open-source auto-label the same thing? No. It is also self-run with your own key, but it only labels issues and PRs (learning from corrections). Issue Triage BYOK writes a technical triage comment; labels, priority and duplicates are its Pro extras.

What does the action never do? It never closes or edits issues and ignores pull requests and issues opened by bots. It writes one comment (Pro also adds labels).

What if my Pro key is missing or invalid? The action simply runs the free triage.

Dosu is a trademark of its owner. This page is not affiliated with Dosu; facts about Dosu come from its public site as cited above.

Terms · Privacy · Refunds (7-day money-back) · Contact