You find an issue that looks open. No assignee, no linked PR, a clear bug report. You spend an evening on a fix, open a PR, and then learn that someone else already has one waiting in review.

This happens a lot, and it isn't carelessness. A GitHub issue page doesn't reliably tell you whether anyone is working on the issue. It misses that work in at least five ways.

1. The PR never links to the issue

An issue page lists a PR only if the PR says "Fixes #80" or the author links it by hand. Many PRs do neither. The issue looks untouched while a fix sits in review.

2. The project moved

Libraries often move into a monorepo or a new org. The old issue stays open, the fixes are opened in the new repository, and the old issue page can't see them.

3. Claims live in the comments

People write "I'd like to work on this" or /assign without ever being assigned. You only find out by reading the whole thread.

4.…