Correct. There’s no way you’re going to write every item inside the box on the box itself. And definitely not on every side of the box. Think cables and small items.

It only makes sense if you plan on unpacking over a year but if you unpack everything in a couple days then the system is not as useful.

Is it really less work to type it into github issues than to just write it on the box with a marker?

Not much, but writing it in the issue is a lot more useful because you can search. The manual search writing everything on the box enables is a lot more annoying.

Can't you just label the box cables?

Yes, but unless you are tracking the location of every box and adding it to the relevant github issue, finding the issue in Github doesn't help you find the box IRL.

Not that hard to keep to some scheme how you sort the boxes or dropping a quick note in the issue, and finding the box with a big one word/number label is easier than finding the box where one of a dozens things written on it is the thing you want.