| name | unblock-pr |
| description | Load when investigating a failing PR CI pipeline or checking PR health. Attributes each CI failure as flaky, infra, or regression, proposes a targeted action, and reports code coverage and quality/security status. |
| metadata | {"version":"1.0.0","author":"datadog-labs","repository":"https://github.com/datadog-labs/agent-skills","tags":"datadog,ci,cicd,flaky,flaky-tests,pipeline","alwaysApply":"false"} |
Unblock PR
One-line summary: Investigate a failing PR CI pipeline — attribute each failure as flaky, infra, or regression and propose a targeted action.
Requires: dd-pup skill (pup CLI installed and authenticated), triage-flaky-test skill (for flaky failure deep investigation).
Backend
Detection — At the start of every invocation, before taking any action, determine which backend to use:
- If the user passed
--backend pup anywhere → use pup mode immediately. Skip steps 2–4.
- Check whether
search_datadog_ci_pipeline_events appears in your available tools.
- If present → use MCP mode throughout. Call tools exactly as named in this skill's workflow sections.
- If absent → check whether
pup is executable: run pup --version via Bash. If the command exits successfully (exit code 0), pup is available.
- If pup responds → use pup mode throughout. Translate every tool call using the Tool Reference appendix at the bottom of this file.
- If neither is available → stop and tell the user:
"Neither the Datadog MCP server nor the pup CLI is available. Connect the MCP server or install pup (brew install datadog-labs/pack/pup)."
pup invocation rules:
- Invoke via Bash. pup always outputs JSON — parse directly.
- Repository IDs passed to pup must be fully lowercase (the API rejects mixed-case):
github.com/datadog/my-repo, not github.com/DataDog/my-repo.
- If pup returns a 401/403, tell the user to run
pup auth refresh or pup auth login.
Input
| Parameter | Description |
|---|
| PR branch | The branch under investigation (e.g. my-feature-branch) |
| Repository | Lowercase, no-schema URL (e.g. github.com/org/repo). Derive from git remote get-url origin if not provided. |
Workflow
STEP 0 — Parse Input
Derive repository ID and default branch from git if not provided:
git remote get-url origin
git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
STEP 1 — Get PR CI Summary (run in parallel)
Pipeline failures:
Tool: search_datadog_ci_pipeline_events
query: @ci.status:error @git.branch:<branch> @git.repository.id_v2:"<repo>"
ci_level: job
from: now-24h
Test failures (only if pipeline results include test-runner jobs):
Tool: search_datadog_test_events
query: @test.status:fail @git.branch:<branch> @git.repository.id_v2:"<repo>"
from: now-24h
test_level: test
Run both in parallel. Collect all distinct @test.service values from test event results. If more than one distinct service is found, note each separately in the triage brief — do not collapse them into a single service filter. If pipeline results contain only infrastructure job types (build, lint, deploy) with no test-runner output, discard test results and skip to STEP 3.
STEP 1.5 — Fetch PR Health (run in parallel with STEP 1)
This step runs unconditionally — PR health context is valuable whether CI is red or green.
Code coverage (both modes):
Tool: get_datadog_code_coverage_branch_summary
repository_id: <repo>
branch: <branch>
PR number resolution (MCP mode only — skip if PR number already provided as input):
Tool: get_prs_by_head_branch
repo_url: https://<repo>
head_branch: <branch>
Use the first open PR returned. If no open PR is found, skip the quality/security fetch and report "No data available" for Quality and Security.
Code quality and security (MCP mode only — only if PR number is available):
Tool: search_pr_insights
repo_url: https://<repo>
pr_number: <pr_number>
Extract only code_quality and code_security from products_status. Ignore failed_tests, flaky_tests, and failed_jobs — CI data comes from STEP 1–3.
pup mode note: PR number resolution and search_pr_insights are not available in pup. Quality and Security always show "No data available" in pup mode.
STEP 2 — Blame Guard per Failing Job
First check whether @error_classification.domain / @error_classification.type are present on job events from STEP 1 — if populated, use them as primary classification signals.
For each failing job where classification is still needed, run both checks in parallel:
Default branch check — was this job already failing before this PR?
Tool: aggregate_datadog_ci_pipeline_events
query: @ci.status:error @ci.job.name:"<job>" @git.branch:<default-branch> @git.repository.id_v2:"<repo>"
ci_level: job
aggregation: count
from: now-24h
Blast radius check — is this job failing on other branches too?
Tool: aggregate_datadog_ci_pipeline_events
query: @ci.status:error @ci.job.name:"<job>" @git.repository.id_v2:"<repo>"
ci_level: job
aggregation: count
group_by: ["@git.branch"]
from: now-24h
Performance fallback: if the blast radius query is slow or times out, skip it and rely on the default branch check alone.
STEP 3 — Classify Each Failure
Priority order:
- If
@error_classification.domain / @error_classification.type present → use as primary signal
- If test failure AND test in
get_datadog_flaky_tests with flaky_test_state:active → flaky
- Use blame guard results:
| Failing on default branch? | Failing on ≥3 other branches? | Classification |
|---|
| Yes | Yes | infra (pre-existing, widespread) |
| Yes | No | infra (pre-existing on default branch) |
| No | No | regression (introduced by this PR) |
| No | Yes | flaky (intermittent, cross-branch) |
| Insufficient data | — | unknown |
STEP 4 — Produce Triage Brief
One entry per failing job:
PR CI Triage Brief
==================
Branch: <branch>
Repo: <repo>
Job: <job-name>
Classification: <flaky | infra | regression | unknown>
Evidence: <1 key data point — error message, pipeline count, or test result>
Confidence: <high | medium | low>
Recommended: <action>
[repeat for each failing job]
Overall: <N> failures — <e.g. "1 regression, 1 flaky, 1 infra">
PR Health
=========
Coverage: <X>% on <branch> | No data available
Quality: <N violations (X high, Y medium)> | No violations | No data available
Security: <N violations> | No violations | No data available
All three lines always appear. Use "No data available" when a tool returned no data or is unavailable (pup mode for Quality/Security).
STEP 5 — Propose Actions
regression → Prompt user to investigate their code changes. No write action available.
flaky → Load triage-flaky-test skill for deep investigation. Invoke it once per distinct failing test name classified as flaky, passing the test name (from @test.name in STEP 1 results) and the derived repository as inputs. That skill will:
- Attempt an agent-native fix using
flaky_category + stack trace
- Propose quarantine via
update_datadog_flaky_test_states if a quick fix isn't possible
infra → Before proposing a retry, assess whether the failure is transient:
- Check
@error_classification.type and error message for signals like timeout, runner unavailable, network error, quota exceeded — transient failures where a retry is likely to help
- If the error is deterministic (build misconfiguration, missing secret, explicit test assertion failure), a retry is unlikely to help — suggest investigating the root cause
- If the failure is pre-existing on the default branch, inform the user — a retry will likely fail again; await the upstream fix instead
If transient:
MCP mode — GitHub Actions: use retry_datadog_ci_job. From the failing job event, collect:
@ci.provider.name → ci_provider ("github")
@git.repository.id_v2 → repository_id
@ci.job.id → job_id
- event
id field → event_uuid (optional)
For pipeline_id: use @ci.pipeline.id directly if it matches ^\d+-[1-9]\d*$ (e.g. 26027867390-1). If it is a bare numeric run ID, combine it with @github.run_attempt from the same event: "{@ci.pipeline.id}-{@github.run_attempt}". Fallback: parse @ci.pipeline.url — extract {run_id} and {attempt} from runs/{run_id}/attempts/{attempt}.
After retry returns, confirm via search_datadog_ci_pipeline_events (query: @ci.job.name:"<job>" @git.branch:<branch>, from: now-5m) that a new run appears.
Fallback / pup mode — GitHub Actions: extract the run ID from @ci.pipeline.url:
gh run rerun <run_id> --failed
GitLab / other providers (both modes): share @ci.pipeline.url and direct to the provider UI.
unknown → Suggest checking raw job logs via the CI provider UI or @ci.pipeline.url from the pipeline event.
Tool Reference
This appendix applies only in pup mode. In MCP mode, use the tool names in the workflow sections directly.
| MCP Tool | pup Command |
|---|
search_datadog_ci_pipeline_events (ci_level: job) | pup cicd events search --query "..." --level job --from 24h --limit 50 |
aggregate_datadog_ci_pipeline_events (count, group_by branch) | pup cicd events aggregate --query "..." --compute count --group-by "@git.branch" --from 24h |
aggregate_datadog_ci_pipeline_events (count, no group_by) | pup cicd events aggregate --query "..." --compute count --from 24h |
search_datadog_test_events | pup cicd tests search --query "..." --from 24h --limit 50 |
get_datadog_flaky_tests | pup cicd flaky-tests search --query "flaky_test_state:active ..." |
update_datadog_flaky_test_states | Write body to /tmp/flaky-update.json, then pup test-optimization flaky-tests update --file /tmp/flaky-update.json |
get_datadog_code_coverage_branch_summary | repo_lower=$(echo "<repo>" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]') && pup code-coverage branch-summary --repo "$repo_lower" --branch "<branch>" |
get_prs_by_head_branch | Not available in pup — skip; report "No data available" for Quality/Security |
search_pr_insights | Not available in pup — skip; report "No data available" for Quality/Security |
retry_datadog_ci_job | Not available in pup — use gh run rerun <run_id> --failed instead |