lisa-github-build-intake

name	lisa-github-build-intake
description	GitHub counterpart to…
allowed-tools	["Skill","Bash"]

GitHub Build Intake: $ARGUMENTS

$ARGUMENTS is one of:

1. A GitHub org/repo token (e.g., acme/frontend-v2).
2. A full GitHub repo URL (e.g., https://github.com/acme/frontend-v2).
3. The literal token github (or an omitted repo) — resolves merged config github.queueRepo, falling back to the identity github.org/github.repo.

An explicit org/repo token or GitHub URL always wins. github.queueRepo may be canonical owner/repo or a short repo name normalized to github.org. It changes only the scanned queue; the Phase 3a.0 repo:<current> gate still resolves the code repository from repo / github.repo / the git remote.

Run one build-intake cycle. The first eligible issue in the configured ready build label is claimed, built via the github-agent workflow run in-session (Phase 3c, culminating in lisa-implement), relabeled to the configured done label (env-aware — see Workflow resolution), then the cycle exits. Remaining ready issues stay queued for later scheduler invocations.

This skill also accepts an optional assignee=<github-login> queue filter. Resolve it in this order:

1. $ARGUMENTS assignee=<login>
2. .lisa.config.local.json intake.assignee
3. empty default

When the resolved assignee is empty, scan the shared ready queue exactly as before. When it is non-empty, filter the ready-item query to issues already assigned to that login. This filter is selection-only: never assign or reassign issues as part of build intake.

Workflow resolution

Build-queue label names are read from .lisa.config.json github.labels.build.*, falling back to defaults documented in the config-resolution rule. Bash pattern:

ROLE_RESOLVER="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${PLUGIN_ROOT:-plugins/lisa}}/scripts/resolve-lifecycle-role.mjs"
READY=$(node "$ROLE_RESOLVER" --role ready --vendor github --intent read) || exit $?
CLAIMED=$(node "$ROLE_RESOLVER" --role claimed --vendor github --intent write) || exit $?

read_intake_assignee() {
  local cli_value local_v
  cli_value=$(printf '%s\n' "$ARGUMENTS" | sed -n 's/.*assignee=\([^[:space:]]*\).*/\1/p' | head -1)
  local_v=$(jq -r '.intake.assignee // empty' .lisa.config.local.json 2>/dev/null)
  echo "${cli_value:-${local_v:-}}"
}

ASSIGNEE=$(read_intake_assignee)

For env-keyed done, resolve the env first, then look up done[<env>]:

1. Explicit caller arg (target_env=staging) wins.
2. Otherwise, infer the env from the PR's base branch via deploy.branches (reverse lookup).
3. If done is a string in config, use it directly regardless of env.
4. If done is a map and env cannot be resolved, fail loudly — do not pick arbitrarily.

TARGET_ENV="${target_env:-}"
if [ -z "$TARGET_ENV" ] && [ -n "$PR_BASE_BRANCH" ]; then
  TARGET_ENV=$(jq -r --arg b "$PR_BASE_BRANCH" \
    '.deploy.branches // {} | to_entries[] | select(.value == $b) | .key' \
    .lisa.config.json 2>/dev/null | head -1)
fi

DONE_TYPE=$(jq -r '.github.labels.build.done | type' .lisa.config.json 2>/dev/null)
if [ "$DONE_TYPE" = "string" ]; then
  DONE=$(jq -r '.github.labels.build.done' .lisa.config.json)
  DONE_LABELS_JSON=$(jq -c '[.github.labels.build.done]' .lisa.config.json)
elif [ "$DONE_TYPE" = "object" ]; then
  [ -z "$TARGET_ENV" ] && { echo "ERROR: github.labels.build.done is env-keyed but env not resolvable"; exit 1; }
  DONE=$(jq -r --arg e "$TARGET_ENV" '.github.labels.build.done[$e] // empty' .lisa.config.json)
  [ -z "$DONE" ] && { echo "ERROR: github.labels.build.done has no entry for env '$TARGET_ENV'"; exit 1; }
  DONE_LABELS_JSON=$(jq -c '[.github.labels.build.done[]]' .lisa.config.json)
else
  case "$TARGET_ENV" in
    dev) DONE="status:on-dev" ;;
    staging) DONE="status:on-stg" ;;
    production) DONE="status:done" ;;
    *) echo "ERROR: cannot resolve done label without env"; exit 1 ;;
  esac
  DONE_LABELS_JSON=$(jq -cn --arg d "$DONE" '[$d]')
fi

In prose below, the role names refer to the resolved labels: e.g. "the ready label" means whatever github.labels.build.ready resolves to (default: status:ready).

Confirmation policy

Do NOT ask the caller whether to proceed. Once invoked with a repo, run the cycle to completion — claim and dispatch the first eligible issue through the in-session lifecycle (Phase 3c), relabel a successful build to $DONE, write the summary, and exit. The caller (a human or a cron) has already authorized the run by invoking the skill; re-prompting defeats the purpose of a background queue.

Specifically forbidden:

• Previewing projected scope (issue count, projected PR count, build duration) and asking whether to continue.
• Offering A/B/C-style choices like "proceed / skip a few / dry-run only".
• Pausing because the queue is large, issues look complex, or issues are likely to be Blocked by the pre-flight gate. Pre-flight Blocked is a valid terminal state of the per-issue lifecycle, not a failure mode.
• Pausing because the build flow looks expensive.

The only legitimate reasons to stop early:

• Missing repo or required configuration. Surface the missing value and exit.
• Label namespace not adopted (no issue carries any of $READY / $CLAIMED / $DONE). Surface a label-convention error and exit (this is setup, not a normal idle cycle — see "Adoption" at the bottom).
• Empty pre-work set. Exit cleanly on the denominator-stated summary from summarizeDryLane — which names every lane swept, its count, and the open total. A bare "nothing to do" is not an acceptable exit: it is indistinguishable from a wrong denominator (#2657).

Lifecycle assumed

The GitHub Issues build lifecycle uses labels (we deliberately do NOT key off open/closed alone — closed issues aren't always the right post-build state):

ready → claimed → done(env-keyed)
(human)  (us claim)  (us done; PR ready)

(Defaults: status:ready / status:in-progress / status:on-dev/status:on-stg/status:done.)

This skill ONLY transitions:

• $READY → $CLAIMED (claim)
• $CLAIMED → $DONE (build complete, PR ready)

A "transition" means: remove the old role label and add the new one, in two gh issue edit calls (--remove-label + --add-label) or one combined call. The skill MUST verify exactly one build-lifecycle label (from the resolved $READY/$CLAIMED/$DONE set) is present after the update — having two simultaneously breaks idempotency.

Pre-flight check: at the start of each cycle, confirm at least one of the resolved role labels ($READY, $CLAIMED, or any $DONE value) exists on the repo via gh label list --repo <org>/<repo> --json name. If none exist, the convention has not been adopted — surface the label-convention error and exit.

Phases

Phase 1 — Resolve the repo

1. Parse $ARGUMENTS:
   • org/repo token → use as-is.
   • GitHub URL → extract org and repo.
   • Literal github or omitted repo → resolve local then global github.queueRepo, falling back to github.org/github.repo; normalize a short queueRepo to github.org; error if the resulting identity/queue cannot be resolved.
   • Never replace current-repo identity with the queue repo. An umbrella queue is only a scan target.
2. Confirm gh auth status succeeds.
3. Confirm the repo is reachable: gh repo view <org>/<repo> --json name --jq '.name'.

Phase 2 — Find ready issues

if [ -n "$ASSIGNEE" ]; then
  gh issue list --repo <org>/<repo> --label "$READY" --assignee "$ASSIGNEE" --state open \
    --json number,title,labels,assignees,milestone,createdAt --limit 100
else
  gh issue list --repo <org>/<repo> --label "$READY" --state open \
    --json number,title,labels,assignees,milestone,createdAt --limit 100
fi

If empty, run a secondary check to distinguish a genuinely empty queue from an unconfigured repo:

gh label list --repo <org>/<repo> --json name \
  | jq -r --arg r "$READY" --arg c "$CLAIMED" --argjson d "$DONE_LABELS_JSON" \
      '[.[] | .name | select(. == $r or . == $c or (. as $n | $d | index($n)))] | length'

If none of the configured role labels exist on the repo → label convention not adopted, surface a setup error and exit.

2a. Sweep every pre-work lane, and state the denominator

GitHub Issues has no state-type field, so labels are the only lane available here — a constraint of GitHub's data model, not a preference (see "Why labels" above). That makes the omission risk higher, not lower: there is no type to fall back on, so the pre-work set must be derived from configured roles, never from a hardcoded roster of label names. The pre-work lanes are:

• the configured $READY label — the human-flipped lane, worked first;
• the configured $BLOCKED label (github.labels.build.blocked) — items that were never started, each carrying a written blocker that nothing re-read until Phase 2.5;
• open issues carrying no build role label — which this scanner must see anyway in order to determine and stamp their repo.

Count each lane and the repo's total open count (gh issue list --state open --limit 1000 --json number | jq length), then build the denominator with the shared helper — GitHub callers pass the lane type explicitly, since there is none to read:

buildIntakeDenominator({ lanes: [{name: "$READY", type: "unstarted", count: <n>},
                                 {name: "$BLOCKED", type: "unstarted", count: <n>},
                                 {name: "(no role label)", type: "backlog", count: <n>},
                                 {name: "$CLAIMED", type: "started", count: <n>}, …],
                         totalOpen: <open issue count> })
summarizeDryLane(denominator, { queue: "<org>/<repo>" })

Every candidate outside $READY must clear Phase 2.5 before it is treated as a candidate at all. If nothing survives, exit on the denominator-stated summary from summarizeDryLane — never a bare "nothing to do". The run recorder rejects a dry build-intake run that does not name what it swept (see automation-runbook-contract).

2a.1 Re-probe the blockers instead of inheriting them

A blocker is a claim with a timestamp, not a fact — it goes stale the moment its condition comes true, and nothing re-read one before this phase. For each $BLOCKED candidate:

1. Human gate first, and it is absolute. An issue carrying the configured human-needed label (github.labels.build.human_needed, default human-needed) or a [lisa-human-gate] marker in its body is never auto-selected, whatever any probe says.
2. Extract the stated discharge condition, then probe it. Machine-testable conditions — a version on trunk, a published package, a CI run history, an advisory's patched status — rot fastest and are cheapest to check. A human decision is not machine-testable; leave it.
3. Classify with classifyPreWorkCandidate(...) from scripts/intake-blocker-reprobe.mjs. A discharge with no recorded evidence is not a discharge, and neither is a candidate nothing probed this cycle — the helper refuses both.
4. Record the result on the issue either way via formatReprobeNote(...) as a comment, so the next cycle reads the answer rather than re-deriving it. Keep it idempotent.
5. On selectable: true, relabel $BLOCKED → $READY with the discharging evidence in the same comment, and treat it as an ordinary candidate. On anything else, leave it where it is.

2b. Lifecycle-label trust resolution (bot-authored labels are not signals)

A status:* label is only a lifecycle signal if a trustworthy actor applied it. Third-party GitHub Apps write labels through the same API humans do, and at least one — coderabbitai[bot] — stamps status:* on issues seconds after filing. Measured on CodySwannGT/lisa#2460–#2540: seven of eight bot-applied lifecycle labels landed 26–118s after creation. Those labels are guesses wearing the costume of the intake contract, and they break the queue in both directions:

• a bot-applied $CLAIMED makes an unworked issue look like somebody's active work, so no cycle picks it up and no human re-examines it (#2470 sat unworked for a day this way);
• a bot-applied $READY puts an issue into the build queue that no human ever flipped ready (#2538), inverting the gate the ready role exists to be.

Before treating any candidate's lifecycle labels as meaningful, resolve which ones are trustworthy:

TRUST_DIR=$(mktemp -d)
trap 'rm -rf "$TRUST_DIR"' EXIT

gh api "repos/<org>/<repo>/issues/<n>" > "$TRUST_DIR/issue.json"

# --paginate emits ONE ARRAY PER PAGE. Reading `$t[0]` would pass only page one,
# silently dropping later label events — the newest of which is exactly the
# application this classifier keys on. --slurp + `add` flattens all pages.
gh api "repos/<org>/<repo>/issues/<n>/timeline?per_page=100" --paginate --slurp \
  > "$TRUST_DIR/pages.json"
jq 'add // []' "$TRUST_DIR/pages.json" > "$TRUST_DIR/timeline.json"

# Resolve config the SAME way `read_role` does: the local file overrides the
# global one key by key. Reading only `.lisa.config.json` would resolve a stale
# terminal `done` label for any project that overrides it locally, and
# `lisa-repair-intake` WRITES on the drift direction that mistake produces.
# Both files are optional — a missing one must not abort the cycle.
jq -s '(.[0] // {}) * (.[1] // {})' \
  <(cat .lisa.config.json 2>/dev/null || echo '{}') \
  <(cat .lisa.config.local.json 2>/dev/null || echo '{}') \
  > "$TRUST_DIR/config.json"

jq -n --slurpfile i "$TRUST_DIR/issue.json" \
      --slurpfile t "$TRUST_DIR/timeline.json" \
      --slurpfile c "$TRUST_DIR/config.json" \
      '{issue: $i[0], timeline: $t[0], config: $c[0]}' \
  > "$TRUST_DIR/input.json"

node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/lifecycle-label-trust.mjs" < "$TRUST_DIR/input.json"

The temp directory is per invocation. Fixed /tmp/lisa-*.json paths let two concurrent intake cycles interleave one issue's metadata with another's timeline, which yields a confident verdict about an item that was never examined.

The classifier returns trusted, untrusted, unknownProvenance, and a per-label evaluated list carrying the actor and the latency behind each decision. Use trusted wherever this skill would otherwise read the raw label set, and specifically:

• a candidate whose $READY is untrusted is not claimable — skip it and leave it for a human to flip genuinely ready; report it in the summary rather than dispatching it;
• a candidate whose $CLAIMED is untrusted is not claimed — if its $READY is trusted it stays a normal candidate, exactly as if the bot label were absent.

2c. A trusted claim is a skip reason

The scan filters on --label "$READY" alone, so an issue carrying both $READY and $CLAIMED comes back as a candidate. The rules above rescue the case where a bot applied the claim; they say nothing about the case where a human did — which is the strongest claim signal there is, and the one that was being ignored. An issue a person marked in-progress is somebody's active work, and dispatching a second agent onto it is how two branches end up fixing the same thing.

The classifier answers this directly, so the skill does not have to reason about it:

{ "claimable": false,
  "reason": "already carries a trusted \"status:in-progress\", so somebody is working it; intake must not dispatch a second agent onto the same issue" }

A candidate with claimable: false is skipped and reported with its reason. It is not an error and not a stall — it is the queue working. Never strip the claim to make it claimable: that is the label-flap the section above refuses, aimed at a human this time.

claimable is computed from the trusted set, not the raw labels, which is what keeps it from undoing 2b — a bot-applied claim leaves the issue claimable exactly as if it were absent.

Never unlabel to correct this. The bot re-applies its label on each subsequent review event, so reverting produces a label-flap loop that is worse than the defect. The guard is that intake stops believing the label; it writes nothing. Distrust is idempotent and cannot race.

A label whose provenance cannot be established (applied at creation, which GitHub records no labeled event for) is trusted but listed in unknownProvenance — failing closed there would ignore the human status:ready that opens the queue. Report that list; do not silently drop it.

Lifecycle membership is decided by the status: prefix, never by a pinned member list. The live family has drifted 7 → 6 members, and a literal set breaks silently: an unrecognised member simply fails to match, so the guard would report clean on exactly the case it stopped covering.

Phase 3 — Process the first eligible ready issue

3a.0 Repo-scope gate (claim only current-repo issues)

GitHub Issues live in one repo by definition, so the scanned repo's issues are usually inherently current-repo. But a planning/umbrella repo's issues can target sibling repos, so this skill still claims only issues for the repo it is running in. Run this gate before the leaf-only gate (3a) and the claim (3b), per the repo-scope-split rule's "Claim-time repo scoping" section (cite it by slug; do not restate its decision table).

1. Resolve the current repo per config-resolution "Repo scoping" (.repo → .github.repo → git remote get-url origin basename). If unresolvable, stop and report.
2. Cheap path first. Prefer candidates already carrying the repo:<current> label. Keep the Phase 2 scan broad so unlabeled issues are still seen, determined, and stamped.
3. Per candidate, apply the repo-scope decision (repo-scope-split):
   • Carries repo:<other> → skip (leave it ready for that repo's own intake); next candidate.
   • Unlabeled → determine the target repo(s) from the issue + code surfaces, then stamp repo:<name> via gh issue edit <n> --add-label "repo:<name>" (create the label lazily) so later cycles filter cheaply; re-apply with the now-known repo. (An issue whose work is entirely in the scanned repo is simply labeled repo:<current>.)
   • Container visibility is allowed. A multi-repo Epic / Story / Spike may legitimately carry multiple repo:<name> labels for operator visibility. Do not split or claim it here; leave the repo markers intact and fall through to the leaf-only gate, which repairs the stale build-ready label instead of dispatching the container.
   • Multi-repo leaf → split, never claim. Run the repo-scope-split work-time procedure into single-repo siblings, each created build-ready (build_ready: true) and stamped with its own repo:<name>; the current repo's sibling becomes a normal candidate.
   • Single-repo leaf for the current repo → fall through to 3a (leaf-only gate) and 3b (claim).
4. Continue until a claimable current-repo leaf is found (claim it; one per cycle) or the candidate set is exhausted — exit cleanly on the denominator-stated summary, naming the current repo alongside the swept lanes.

3a. Leaf-only claim gate (repair containers)

Build intake dispatches only independently implementable leaf work units to the build agent. This enforces the claim-time arm of the vendor-neutral leaf-only-lifecycle rule: a parent/container that still carries a stale build-ready role (e.g. status:ready applied before this rule existed, or hand-applied to an Epic/Story) is never dispatched — intake moves it out of the pickup queue by replacing $READY with $CLAIMED, then posts a clear lifecycle-repair message. It is the claim-time complement to the write-time labeling in lisa-github-write-issue and the validate-time S15 gate in lisa-github-validate-issue; all three cite the same rule so the classification never drifts. Never silently implement a container.

Run this gate before the leaf claim relabel, starting with the oldest/highest-priority ready candidate. Do NOT comment "Claimed" or dispatch the lifecycle for an issue that fails the gate. A container repair still changes labels: remove $READY, add $CLAIMED, explain that parent/container $CLAIMED means rollup/build-lane progress through child/leaf work rather than direct implementation, record it, and end the cycle.

Resolve container vs. leaf — structural first, then nominal. Per leaf-only-lifecycle the classification is structural: an issue is a container if it has open child work, whatever its declared type; otherwise the type label decides. Resolve child work using the same hierarchy lisa-github-read-issue uses — native sub-issues first, then body parentage (task-list checkboxes referencing other issues, Parent: #<n> references). Dependency links such as Blocked by: are not parentage; they are handled by the active dependency hold gate below.

# Native sub-issues via GraphQL (same query lisa-github-read-issue uses).
SUBS=$(gh api graphql -f query='
query($org:String!,$repo:String!,$number:Int!){
  repository(owner:$org,name:$repo){
    issue(number:$number){
      subIssues(first: 100) {
        nodes { number state }
      }
    }
  }
}' -F org=<org> -F repo=<repo> -F number=<number> 2>/dev/null)

# Count children still OPEN — a parent whose children are all closed is no longer
# holding open work and rolls up via lisa-github-read-issue's rollup, not here.
OPEN_CHILDREN=$(echo "$SUBS" | jq -r '[.data.repository.issue.subIssues.nodes[]? | select(.state == "OPEN")] | length' 2>/dev/null)
OPEN_CHILDREN=${OPEN_CHILDREN:-0}

If the GraphQL subIssues field is unavailable (older GHES), fall back to parsing the body for child references exactly as lisa-github-read-issue does, and treat the issue as a container if any referenced child issue is open. Note "GraphQL sub-issues unavailable" so the operator knows parentage was text-derived.

Classify and act (first match wins). type: is read from the issue's labels (type:Epic, type:Story, type:Spike, type:Bug, type:Task, type:Sub-task, type:Improvement):

Condition	Class	Action
OPEN_CHILDREN > 0 (open child work, any type)	Container	Move to $CLAIMED as lifecycle repair — do NOT dispatch
no open children AND type = Epic	Childless Epic (pure rollup container)	Move to $CLAIMED as lifecycle repair — do NOT dispatch
no open children AND type ≠ Epic (Bug, Task, Sub-task, Improvement, Story, Spike, or no type: label)	Leaf work unit	Proceed to 3b claim

The childless-parent exception promotes every childless type except Epic to a dispatchable leaf: a childless Story is a directly shippable increment and a childless Spike is the investigation unit, so neither is stranded. Only a childless Epic is held back — an Epic is a pure rollup container by design, and a childless one is an incomplete decomposition or a mis-applied role, moved out of the ready pickup queue for repair/rollup and never dispatched.

Lifecycle repair (default action for a flagged container). Move the issue out of the pickup queue by removing $READY and adding $CLAIMED, post a single lifecycle-repair comment, and record the issue under "Repaired (container)" in the summary. Do NOT dispatch the lifecycle. Keep the comment idempotent — skip posting if an identical [claude-build-intake] lifecycle-repair comment already exists on the issue, so a re-entrant cycle doesn't spam it.

gh issue edit <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --remove-label "$READY" --add-label "$CLAIMED"
gh issue comment <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --body "[claude-build-intake] Lifecycle repair: this issue carried the build-ready role ($READY) but is a parent/container with open child work (or a childless Epic). I moved it to $CLAIMED without invoking the build agent. For parent/container issues, $CLAIMED means rollup/build-lane progress through child/leaf work; direct implementation must happen on leaf issues. Build-ready is leaf-only per leaf-only-lifecycle — move $READY onto its leaf children, or decompose/reclassify a childless Epic."

This gate never blocks a legitimate flat Task/Bug: those have no open children and a leaf type:, so they fall straight through to the claim in 3b.

Active dependency hold gate. After the leaf-only gate passes, but still before the claim relabel, parse explicit blocker relationships from the issue body and durable Lisa relationship sections. Support these forms at minimum:

• Blocked by: #123
• Blocked by: #123, #456
• Blocked by: owner/repo#123
• Blocked by: https://github.com/owner/repo/issues/123

Resolve local #123 references against the candidate issue's repo. Resolve qualified refs and GitHub issue URLs against their named repo. For each blocker, read the blocker issue's status labels with gh issue view <number> --repo <owner>/<repo> --json labels,state.

Default cleared blocker labels for GitHub build intake are:

• status:code-review
• status:on-dev
• status:on-stg
• status:done

A blocker is active if it is open and has no cleared status label. Treat status:ready, status:in-progress, missing status labels, and inaccessible blockers as active. Closed blockers are cleared. If any blocker is active, skip the candidate without changing lifecycle labels, without posting "Claimed", and without dispatching the lifecycle. Record it under "Skipped (active blockers)" in the summary and include the active blocker refs. Keep any dependency-hold comment idempotent with a [claude-build-intake] prefix.

3b. Claim

Rejection detection runs first — before the relabel below. Per the vendor-neutral rejection-detection rule (cite the slug; do not restate its classification table), classify this item at the top of 3b, BEFORE the $READY → $CLAIMED relabel — after the relabel the current-lane signal is gone. Read the item's Label-Event History from lisa-github-read-issue (chronological LabeledEvent / UnlabeledEvent on the configured $READY label) and classify it rejection-reclaim | forward-only | never-left-ready | unknown. Lane names come from .lisa.config.json (github.labels.build.*), never hardcoded. A failing/absent history yields unknown and the claim proceeds — detection never blocks the build. Items carrying a learning marker ([lisa-learning-drop] / [lisa-learning-pr] / [lisa-learning-upstream-handoff]) or the learning:needs-triage label are never rejection triggers (no learning-about-learning). Carry the classification into the relabel and lifecycle below.

On rejection-reclaim, reflect before re-implementing (per rejection-detection): read the rejection evidence through the access layer — the issue comments posted after the backward transition (the QA rejection comment) and the review threads on the rejected PR via lisa-github-read-issue — assemble ONE candidate learning (rule, why, provenance linking the rejection comment + rejected PR, evidence links, scope hint, triggering issue, fingerprint sll4-sha1(rule\ntriggering_issue)[:12]), and route it to the lisa-persist-learning skill. If that skill is absent, record the candidate as a comment carrying a visible prose line plus the marker (a bare marker renders as an empty bubble) — Recorded a candidate learning from this rejection (queued for the judgment gate): <one-line candidate rule>. then <!-- [lisa-rejection-candidate] key=<issue>-<transition-ts> --> — and proceed. Dedupe on <issue>-<backward-transition-timestamp> — a second re-claim produces no duplicate. Unreadable/absent evidence → no candidate, still implement.

Claim-time archaeology runs second — after rejection detection, still before the relabel below. Classify this item per the vendor-neutral claim-archaeology rule, with the rejection classification above as its input. All shared semantics — ancestry signals, classification, learning-loop exclusion, cost budget, candidate derivation, marker dedupe, and the never-block degrade — live in that one slug; change them there, never here. GitHub wiring only: the typed relations and closingIssuesReferences are already in the read bundle; text-similarity searches use gh search issues over recently-closed issues; the fallback candidate comment is posted with gh issue comment.

The two claim-time-guards run third and fourth — still before the relabel below. Both semantics live in that one vendor-neutral slug; do not restate them here. GitHub wiring only:

1. two-failed-attempts valve. Count [lisa-build-attempt] markers on the issue from the read bundle's comments (match on the marker, never the title). With two or more, do not claim: relabel to the configured blocked role (gh issue edit <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --remove-label "$READY" --add-label "$BLOCKED", resolved from github.labels.build.blocked per config-resolution), post the operator-readable comment naming both attempts, and stop the cycle at Phase 3e. Every non-success terminal outcome recorded in 3c/3d also appends a fresh <!-- [lisa-build-attempt] n=<N> outcome=<outcome> --> marker so the next cycle can count it.
2. already-implemented check. Probe for this issue's own key — git log --all --grep "<org>/<repo>#<number>" and gh pr list --repo <org>/<repo> --state all --search "<org>/<repo>#<number>" --json number,state,mergedAt,url. On a hit, claim as normal but route 3c to verify-and-close instead of lisa-implement: verify what shipped against the issue's acceptance criteria, post evidence via lisa-github-evidence naming the shipping PR/commit, then run the ordinary 3d transition and 3d.1 rollup. A partial hit implements only the remaining gap. An unreadable history degrades to "no hit" and the ordinary path proceeds — the guard never blocks the claim. This is not DUPLICATE_ALREADY_FIXED (a different canonical issue) and not claim-archaeology (a different ancestor issue); it is this issue's own work already having shipped without a transition.

gh issue edit <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --remove-label "$READY" --add-label "$CLAIMED"
# Assign to the authenticated user ONLY when the issue is currently unassigned (attributable claim;
# do not pile a second assignee onto an issue that already has an owner):
gh issue view <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --json assignees -q '.assignees | length' # → if 0:
gh issue edit <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --add-assignee "@me"
gh issue comment <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --body "[claude-build-intake] Claimed by Claude. Starting build."

This is the idempotency lock — a re-entrant cycle's --label $READY filter will not see this issue again.

If the relabel fails (permission, race), log under "Errors" in the cycle summary and skip this issue. Do not invoke the build flow on an issue you didn't successfully claim.

3c. Run the per-issue lifecycle in-session (never as a subagent)

After the claim succeeds, run the per-issue lifecycle defined by the github-agent workflow in the current session — never by spawning github-agent (or any named worker) via the Agent tool. The lifecycle culminates in a team-first flow (lisa-implement), and that flow can only create its agent team from the lead session: a spawned teammate cannot add named teammates (Claude teams are flat), so dispatching the build into a subagent strands lisa-implement without its team and collapses the build into a single inline worker. Concretely:

1. Run the gates in-session via their skills, exactly as github-agent.md defines them and with all of its gating behaviors intact:
   • lisa-github-read-issue — the full issue graph (mandatory; never ad-hoc gh reads)
   • lisa-github-verify — pre-flight quality gate, including the draft-then-block procedure on FAIL
   • lisa-ticket-triage — analytical triage gate (a BLOCKED verdict stops the cycle with findings posted)
   • Intent determination from the type: label
2. Dispatch the flow in-session: when the gates pass, invoke the lifecycle skill via the Skill tool — lisa-implement <org>/<repo>#<number> for Build / Fix / Improve / Investigate-Only (or lisa-plan for an Epic) — passing the full context bundle from the read step. When 3b classified this item rejection-reclaim, the context bundle passed to lisa-implement MUST include the rejection evidence summary (what was rejected, the defect the QA comment named, the approach named as wrong) — reuse the evidence already read in 3b, do not fetch it twice — so the plan can address it per rejection-detection; absence of evidence never blocks. lisa-implement's own orchestration preamble then creates the per-item agent team (input-resolver, Roster Decision, specialist fanout) exactly as a direct invocation would.
3. Milestone sync and evidence (lisa-github-sync, lisa-github-evidence) happen at the milestones the github-agent workflow defines, within the dispatched flow.

If you are somehow running this skill as a spawned teammate inside an existing team (nested misrouting — Intake keeps this chain in the lead session), do NOT run the lifecycle inline and do NOT spawn named peers. Return this payload to the lead so the lead session can run this Phase 3c in-session:

{
  "type": "delegation-request",
  "phase": "github-build-intake 3c",
  "workItem": "<org>/<repo>#<number>",
  "context": {
    "claimedLabel": "$CLAIMED",
    "doneResolution": "Resolve $DONE from the PR base branch per this skill's Workflow resolution section"
  },
  "onSuccess": "Confirm the returned PR is merged, then apply Phase 3d and Phase 3d.1",
  "onBlockedOrError": "Leave the issue where the lifecycle left it and record the surfaced outcome"
}

The lifecycle run returns one of the following outcomes; resume this scanner with it:

• Success — the build flow completed and a PR exists; evidence posted. The PR may already be merged or still open (auto-merge enabled, awaiting checks/merge). "Success" means the build work is sound — it does not assert the change reached an environment. The env transition in 3d gates on the PR actually being merged; an open PR does not advance the issue to a done env status.
• Blocked by github-verify pre-flight gate — the pre-flight gate (github-agent workflow step 2) relabels the issue to status:blocked (or removes $CLAIMED and reassigns to the original author). This is correct and expected — let it stand. Record and move on.
• Duplicate already fixed — lisa-ticket-triage returned DUPLICATE_ALREADY_FIXED with a canonical issue reference and empirical base-branch evidence. Post the triage finding, ensure the native duplicates <canonical> relationship exists when GitHub exposes it (otherwise leave an explicit cross-reference comment/body link), remove $CLAIMED, add the terminal $DONE label, close the issue with gh issue close --reason "not planned", and do not open a PR. If the canonical fix is merged but not yet on the production branch, the close comment must say the production error can recur until the canonical issue promotes and that recurrence is tracked by the canonical issue; do not reopen this duplicate for that recurrence.
• Blocked by ticket-triage ambiguities — triage posts findings and the lifecycle stops. The issue stays in $CLAIMED. Surface to human; do not auto-relabel. Record under "Errors".
• Errored — exception, missing config, etc. Leave the issue in $CLAIMED for human investigation. Record under "Errors".

3c.1 Close duplicate already fixed

Run this only when the returned triage verdict is exactly DUPLICATE_ALREADY_FIXED.

1. Verify the structured result includes a canonical issue reference, the canonical PR/commit, and empirical evidence that the canonical fix is present on the base branch. If any piece is missing, treat the outcome as Held instead of closing.
2. Post or preserve the triage-finding comment that explains why this issue is a duplicate and names the canonical issue.
3. Ensure a native duplicates <canonical> link exists when GitHub exposes issue relationships; if this installation cannot create that relationship, leave an explicit issue cross-reference comment/body link and record the limitation in the summary.
4. Resolve terminal $DONE exactly as in Phase 3d. For a single-env repo, $DONE is terminal; for env-keyed config, only the production/final value is terminal.
5. Replace $CLAIMED with $DONE, then close the issue as duplicate/not-planned:

gh issue edit <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --remove-label "$CLAIMED" --add-label "$DONE"
gh issue comment <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --body "[claude-build-intake] Closed as duplicate of <canonical>. Canonical fix: <PR-or-commit>. Evidence: <base-branch-proof>."
gh issue close <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --reason "not planned"

If the canonical fix is merged but not yet present on the production branch, append the production-promotion caveat to the close comment: the production error can recur until the canonical issue promotes, and recurrence is tracked by the canonical issue rather than by reopening this duplicate.

This path is distinct from BLOCKED: ambiguity, open blockers, and duplicate-of-open findings remain held for human action and must not be auto-closed.

3c.2 Confirm applied learnings (last_confirmed bump)

Run this at the end of 3c, after the lifecycle outcome is recorded and before 3d. It keeps the decay pass safe: a genuinely useful learning that keeps applying stays fresh, while dead weight ages out.

1. Identify which learnings demonstrably applied. Resolve the learnings surface with resolveProjectLearningsFile and parse it with parseLearningsFile from @codyswann/lisa/learnings (never hardcode the path; a missing file skips this step silently). An entry counts as applied ONLY when its rule was explicitly cited or observably followed in this claim's plan, diff, or review responses — the plan quotes the rule or its id, or the diff does specifically what the rule mandates where the default behavior would have differed. Presence in context is NOT application: entries reach a session only through the contract's bounded projection, so counting "it was projected" would confirm every projected entry on every claim and defeat decay entirely. A run that produced no plan or diff has nothing to confirm.

2. Bump each applied entry exactly once via the surgical writer:

   node -e 'import("@codyswann/lisa/learnings").then(async m => { const r = await m.confirmLearningEntry(process.cwd(), process.argv[1], new Date().toISOString().slice(0, 10)); console.log(JSON.stringify(r)); }).catch(error => { console.log(JSON.stringify({ status: "error", id: process.argv[1], message: String(error) })); })' <entry-id> || true
   

   The invocation is failure-safe by construction: a rejected import or write resolves to a structured error result instead of a crash, and the trailing || true absorbs any remaining non-zero exit (missing node, unresolvable package). Record an error or non-zero outcome in the cycle summary and continue — the bump must never abort the lifecycle.

   confirmLearningEntry advances ONLY last_confirmed — rule text, why, provenance, first_learned, and confidence are untouched — and is idempotent within a claim: a repeat same-date bump returns unchanged, so an entry that applied repeatedly during one claim is bumped once, not once per application.

3. Never block on it. A failed bump, an unwritable file, or a not-found result (the entry was pruned) is recorded under the cycle summary and the claim proceeds — shipping the issue always outranks confirming a learning about it.

3d. Transition to $DONE (only after the PR is merged)

A done env state (status:on-dev, status:on-stg, or the terminal value) asserts that the code has actually reached that environment. Never set it for a PR that is merely open: auto-merge can be blocked indefinitely (a required rebase / BEHIND branch, failing checks, an unaddressed review), and the change may never land. Relabeling an issue status:on-stg on an open PR makes it claim a deploy that never happened. Transition only after confirming the PR merged.

If the lifecycle run returned Success:

1. Confirm the PR merged. Read the live state of the issue's PR — gh pr view <pr> --json state,mergedAt,mergeStateStatus,url:
   • Merged (state == MERGED) → proceed to resolve and apply $DONE below. Where the env deploy is observable (a deploy workflow run / deployment status keyed to the merged-into branch via deploy.branches), confirm it did not fail before relabeling; a still-running deploy is treated like an open PR (leave in $CLAIMED), a failed deploy is recorded as an Error.
   • Open / not yet merged → do not transition. The build is sound but the change has reached no environment yet. Record the issue under "PR open — awaiting merge" in the summary (with the PR URL and its mergeStateStatus), leave it in $CLAIMED, and stop. A later lisa-repair-intake cycle drives the open PR to merge — re-syncing a BEHIND branch so the already-enabled auto-merge can land, or surfacing a real blocker — and, once merged, applies this same env transition. Do not comment "Build complete" or close anything.
   • Closed without merging → record an Error (the PR was abandoned unmerged); leave the issue in $CLAIMED.
2. Resolve $DONE for this issue's PR base branch using the Workflow resolution algorithm above. If env can't be resolved and done is env-keyed, record an Error and skip this transition — never guess.
3. Determine whether $DONE is the true terminal done value per the leaf-only-lifecycle rule's Terminal native closure section:
   • If github.labels.build.done is a string, that string is terminal.
   • If github.labels.build.done is an object, only the production/final environment value is terminal (default: status:done). Intermediate env values such as status:on-dev and status:on-stg are not terminal and must stay open.
   • If the project uses a different final environment name, resolve it from the configured deployment topology; if ambiguous, record an Error and do not close.

gh issue edit <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --remove-label "$CLAIMED" --add-label "$DONE"
gh issue comment <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --body "[claude-build-intake] Build complete. PR <URL> merged. Transitioned to $DONE."

If $DONE is terminal, immediately close the native GitHub issue:

gh issue close <number> --repo <org>/<repo> --reason completed

This close is idempotent: if the issue is already closed, record that native closure was already satisfied and continue. If $DONE is an intermediate env state, leave the issue open by design.

For any non-Success outcome, do NOT transition. The issue sits in $CLAIMED (or wherever the lifecycle left it) — humans take it from there.

3d.1 Roll up the parent chain (forward rollup)

Run this only after a successful $DONE transition in 3d (the leaf actually reached an env — intermediate or terminal). This is the forward arm of the leaf-only-lifecycle rule's "rollup is evaluated whenever a child transitions" requirement: a leaf reaching $DONE is exactly such a transition, so its parent's derived state may now have changed — the last open child of a Story just shipped, so the Story rolls up to $DONE and closes, which may in turn complete its Epic. Without this step a fully-built parent stays open until the recovery lisa-repair-intake cron happens to run.

1. Resolve the leaf's parent using the same hierarchy lisa-github-read-issue uses — native sub-issue parent first (GraphQL parent), then body parentage (Parent: #<n> / Parent Epic: #<n>). If the leaf has no parent, skip — nothing to roll up.
2. Walk up the ancestor chain bottom-up: for the immediate parent, then its parent, and so on, invoke lisa-github-sync <org>/<repo>#<ancestor> --rollup. That skill derives the ancestor's status:* from its children per leaf-only-lifecycle, applies it only when it differs (never status:ready), and performs terminal native closure (gh issue close --reason completed) when the derived env is the production/terminal $DONE. It is idempotent and safe-defaults (suggests, does not guess) when the rolled state is ambiguous.
3. Stop walking up when an ancestor has no parent, or when --rollup reports no change (a higher ancestor cannot advance past an unchanged child). Record each rolled-up ancestor and its derived state in the summary.

This does not re-implement the state machine — it delegates to lisa-github-sync --rollup, the single rollup implementation lisa-repair-intake also uses, so the forward and recovery paths can never drift. Children closed outside this flow (e.g. by external automation) are not observed here; lisa-repair-intake remains the recovery net for those.

3e. Stop

Stop immediately after the first claimed, skipped, blocked, held, or errored issue. Later scheduler invocations process the remaining ready issues.

Phase 4 — Summary report

## github-build-intake summary

Repo: <org>/<repo>
Cycle started: <ISO timestamp>
Cycle completed: <ISO timestamp>

Issues processed: <n>
- $DONE (build complete, PR merged): <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> → PR <URL>
- PR open — awaiting merge (left in $CLAIMED for repair-intake): <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> → PR <URL> (mergeStateStatus: <state>)
- Repaired (container — leaf-only-lifecycle): <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> — build-ready on a parent/container; moved $READY → $CLAIMED without dispatching the lifecycle; lifecycle-repair comment posted
- Skipped (active blockers): <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> — waiting on <blocker refs>
- Duplicate already fixed (closed as duplicate): <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> — duplicate of <canonical>; no PR opened
- Blocked (pre-flight verify failed): <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> — see issue comments
- Held (triage found ambiguities): <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> — see issue comments
- Errors: <n>
  - <org>/<repo>#<number> <title> — <reason>

Total PRs opened: <n>

Idempotency & safety

• Leaf-only claim gate runs first: Phase 3a classifies each candidate before any leaf claim; a container with open child work (or a childless Epic) is moved $READY → $CLAIMED as lifecycle repair and never dispatched. The lifecycle-repair comment is idempotent — a re-entrant cycle does not re-post it.
• Dependency hold runs before leaf claim: explicit Blocked by: relationships are resolved after container repair is ruled out but before $READY → $CLAIMED; active blockers leave the leaf candidate in $READY and are reported as skipped, not blocked.
• Claim-first ordering: $CLAIMED set BEFORE the lifecycle dispatch for leaves; containers are also moved to $CLAIMED to leave the ready pickup queue, but are not dispatched.
• No writes outside the lifecycle: this skill only relabels $READY → $CLAIMED and $CLAIMED → $DONE. For containers, $READY → $CLAIMED is a lifecycle repair, not a direct build claim. Every other label change is owned by the per-issue lifecycle (github-agent workflow).
• Duplicate terminal exception: DUPLICATE_ALREADY_FIXED is the only triage outcome that may close a claimed item without a PR from this cycle. It must include a canonical issue reference and empirical base-branch evidence, and it closes as duplicate/not-planned rather than as completed build work.
• Terminal native closure: after $CLAIMED → $DONE, close the GitHub issue only when $DONE is the true terminal done value per leaf-only-lifecycle; intermediate env labels stay open.
• One item per cycle: per-issue exceptions are caught and recorded, then the cycle exits. The scheduler owns retrying or moving on to the next ready item.
• Single cycle per repo: do not run two lisa-github-build-intake cycles in parallel against the same repo — concurrent claims could race. The scheduling layer is responsible for serialization.
• Single-label invariant: after every transition, verify exactly one status:* label is present on the issue. If two are present (rare race), surface as an Error and skip — do NOT auto-resolve.
• Never pick an arbitrary env for $DONE. If done is a map and env is ambiguous, fail loudly.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Purpose
.lisa.config.json github.org	(from $ARGUMENTS)	GitHub org for the default queue
.lisa.config.json github.repo	(from $ARGUMENTS)	Current code-repo identity and repo:<current> scope
.lisa.config.json github.queueRepo	github.org/github.repo	Default GitHub scan repo when no explicit repo/URL is passed
.lisa.config.json github.labels.build.ready	status:ready	The label that signals "human says this is buildable"
.lisa.config.json github.labels.build.claimed	status:in-progress	The label set on pickup
.lisa.config.json github.labels.build.done	env-keyed map or string	The label set after a successful build; env-aware
.lisa.config.json deploy.branches	—	Reverse-lookup map for env inference from PR base branch

If the repo has not adopted the status:* label namespace, this skill cannot run. The remediation is to create the labels — gh label create status:ready --color FBCA04 --description "Ready for build" and similar — typically a one-time setup. See "Adoption" below for the full command set using the defaults; if your project overrides the role names, substitute accordingly.

Rules

• Dispatch leaves only. Per the leaf-only-lifecycle rule, never dispatch a container — an issue with open child work, or a childless Epic — even if it carries the build-ready role. Move it $READY → $CLAIMED as lifecycle repair (Phase 3a); never silently implement a container.
• Never relabel an issue outside the cycle's allowed transitions. The $CLAIMED label is the signature of cycle ownership for leaves, and the parent/container progress state for lifecycle repairs.
• Never do build work directly from this scanner — the per-issue lifecycle (the github-agent workflow culminating in lisa-implement) owns it. And never spawn that lifecycle as a subagent; run it in-session per Phase 3c so lisa-implement can create its agent team.
• Never auto-transition past $DONE. Downstream labels (terminal status:done, etc.) are owned by QA / PM / merge automation.
• Never close a GitHub issue at intermediate env states (status:on-dev, status:on-stg, or configured equivalents). Native close happens only at the terminal done value.
• Never auto-close a BLOCKED, ambiguous, or duplicate-of-open issue. Auto-close is allowed only for DUPLICATE_ALREADY_FIXED.
• If the issue has no Validation Journey or no sign-in credentials, the pre-flight verify gate will catch it — don't try to fix the issue from here.
• On any unexpected outcome from the lifecycle run (status it doesn't claim, missing PR URL on success), record as Error and surface — never assume.
• Never pick an arbitrary env for $DONE resolution. If done is a map and env is ambiguous, fail loudly.

Adoption (one-time per repo)

Before this skill can run, the repo must adopt the status:* label namespace. Using the defaults:

1. Create the labels:

   gh label create status:ready --color FBCA04 --description "Ready for build" --repo <org>/<repo>
   gh label create status:in-progress --color 0E8A16 --description "Build in progress" --repo <org>/<repo>
   gh label create status:on-dev --color 1D76DB --description "Built, deployed to dev" --repo <org>/<repo>
   gh label create status:done --color 0E8A16 --description "Shipped" --repo <org>/<repo>
   

   If your project overrides any github.labels.build.* role name in config, substitute the actual label names you configured.
2. Apply the $READY label to issues that are ready for development.
3. Reserve $CLAIMED, $DONE for this skill — humans should not set them manually except to recover from an error.
4. PRD-source labels (defaults: prd-ready, prd-in-review, etc.) are a SEPARATE namespace owned by lisa-github-prd-intake. Don't conflate.