Provision the Severity field on a triage board

Use this once per Projects v2 board, before calling set_severity against any issue on it, to make sure the board has a Severity single-select field with the canonical options.

Steps

1. Identify the board’s owner login, project number, and owner type (organization is the default if you omit projectOwnerType).

2. Call:

   ensure_severity_field {
     projectOwnerLogin: "<org-or-user>",
     projectNumber: <n>,
     projectOwnerType: "organization"
   }

3. Check the response:

   • created: true — the field did not exist; it was created with options Critical (red), High (orange), Medium (yellow), Low (green).
   • created: false — the field already existed; it was returned as-is, with no mutation. options still lists the current option IDs.

4. If the call instead fails with field_type_conflict, a field named Severity already exists on the board but is not a single-select field (for example, a text or number field). Rename or remove that field on the board before retrying — this tool will not overwrite it.

Notes

• This call is safe to run repeatedly (idempotent) and safe to include in setup automation without a pre-check.
• Projects v2 writes need the project OAuth scope on classic tokens (gh auth login --scopes project); a missing scope surfaces as a missing_scope error, not a silent failure.

See also

• how-to/set-severity.md — the next step, once the field exists.
• reference/tools.md — full input schema.