Issue evaluation
AI-powered issue quality scoring and improvement suggestions.
Kiln can automatically evaluate issues for quality and completeness, helping your team maintain a high-quality backlog.
Clarity scoring
When enabled, Kiln analyzes each issue and assigns a clarity score (0–100).
What's measured
The score considers several factors:
- Is the problem or goal clearly described?
- Are acceptance criteria defined?
- Is there enough context for someone to start working?
- Are edge cases or constraints mentioned?
How scores appear
Issues with low clarity scores are flagged with a badge in list and board views, making it easy to spot issues that need improvement before they enter a sprint.
Improvement suggestions
Alongside the score, Kiln provides specific, actionable suggestions.
Types of suggestions
- Add a clearer description of the problem
- Define acceptance criteria or success metrics
- Break the issue into smaller, more focused pieces
- Add technical context or constraints
- Clarify scope or out-of-scope items
Evaluation snapshots
Each evaluation is saved as a snapshot, creating a history of how issue quality changes over time.
Tracking improvement
Compare snapshots to see if your team's issue writing is improving. Re-trigger evaluation after updating an issue to get a fresh score.
Snapshot history
View the full evaluation history for any issue from the issue detail panel.
Configuration
Issue evaluation is configured per project.
Enabling evaluation
Go to Project Settings → AI to enable or disable automatic evaluation.
Model selection
Choose which AI model to use for evaluation. Different models offer different tradeoffs between speed and quality.
Build readiness
Beyond clarity, Kiln also assesses whether an issue is ready to build.
What "ready to build" means
An issue is ready to build when it has enough detail for the AI agent to start working on it autonomously — clear requirements, defined scope, and sufficient technical context.
Starting a build
When an issue is marked as build-ready, you can click Develop to launch Kiln AI with the issue pre-loaded as context.