babysit-pr

Hold one PR until it is merge-ready: poll, classify, fix, push, poll again. Terminal states are merged, closed, needs-user. Nothing else ends the loop, not a push, not a green run, not a report.

Loop

Each pass:

Snapshot. bash scripts/pr-state.sh <pr> [--since <lastPushAt>]. Carry the previous pass's lastPushAt into --since, so only review items newer than your last push surface.
Terminal first. state is MERGED or CLOSED: report it and stop.
Review items before CI. A fix commit retriggers CI, so answering review first avoids spending a rerun on a SHA you are about to replace.
CI. For each check with a failing conclusion, run bash scripts/classify-failure.sh <check-url> before touching code.
Push. Commit on the PR head branch, push, then return to step 1 on the new SHA.
Wait. bash scripts/watch.sh <pr> blocks until the checks settle, then prints a fresh snapshot. Use it instead of sleeping. Cap it with BABYSIT_MAX_MINUTES, default 60.

Rules

Published and fresh only. Act on review items whose submittedAt or createdAt is newer than lastPushAt. pr-state.sh drops PENDING reviews: a reviewer still drafting has not spoken yet. An item answered before the last push stays answered.
Classify a failure, then act on the class. classify-failure.sh prints flaky or real from log evidence, then the first 20 failing lines. real: patch the branch. flaky: rerun it with gh run rerun <run-id> --failed. While a failure reads flaky, leave tests, build scripts, CI config and dependency pins as they are. A patch that only silences infra hides the signal for everyone downstream.
CI budget: 3 attempts per PR. An attempt is one fix push or one rerun made for a red check; a review-fix push is none. It fails when the checks settle red again.
- Third failed attempt: stop at needs-user, even with ideas left.
- Tell the user the failing checks, what each attempt changed, and the first 20 failing lines.
Humans get the user's words, not yours. A human reviewer is any reviews[].author that is neither the PR author nor flagged isBot. Surface their item to the user with a suggested reply, and wait for explicit confirmation before posting anything to GitHub. Bot items you act on and resolve yourself.
Resolve what you fixed. Once the fix is pushed: bash scripts/resolve-thread.sh <threadId>, using threads[].id from the snapshot.
Merge is the user's call. The sign-off rule (.claude/rules/workflow-sign-off.md): staged means done, committed means signed off. Merge mode starts only with --merge, or when the user says merge in this session. Without it, stop at green and report.
Merge mode merges at green, never before. Run gh pr merge <pr> --squash --match-head-commit <headSha>, --merge in place of --squash for --merge=merge. Then take one more snapshot: MERGED ends the loop.
- headSha comes from the green snapshot: a push that lands after it blocks the merge.
- Never --auto: on a repo without required checks it merges at once, before CI settles.
- Never --delete-branch.
Green is a milestone, not an exit. No failing check, mergeable: MERGEABLE, no unresolved thread: report "ready to merge", then keep polling. Late review items still land while the PR is open. Merge mode merges here instead.

Reviewer set

pr-state.sh reads bot logins from .skilly/config.json at the git root:

{ "review": { "bots": ["chatgpt-codex-connector[bot]", "some-reviewer"] } }

A login ending in [bot] also counts. Missing key or missing file means an empty list, and every reviewer but the PR author reads as human. Read the config each run; keep no login in your head.

CI

Checks are whatever the PR reports. The repo's tier in .skilly/config.json decides the set (the verify skill explains tiers). verify is the one check every tier runs, so a red verify is always a statement about this branch.

Commits

Conventional commit, prefix by content: fix: when a check was red, chore: for a lint or config nit. Add one body line, so the origin of the change stays greppable:

Babysit-pr: fixes review thread <thread-url>

Report

Close every pass with: head SHA, check tally, mergeability, what was pushed, CI attempts spent out of 3, what is still open.