takeover-stale-pr

name

takeover-stale-pr

description

Pick up a stale or abandoned PR that someone (often you) started and stopped, bring it back to a shippable state, and hand it off to pr-shepherd for the active review loop. Use when the user says "take over this PR", "takeover and complete this PR", "continue <PR URL>", or pastes a PR URL and asks to finish it. Accepts a PR number or URL as argument. Distinct from pr-shepherd: the PR is dormant, not in an active review cycle.

Takeover a stale PR

A stale PR is one that was opened, received some work or review, and then went quiet for days or weeks. The branch is usually behind master, there are unresolved review comments, and CI is red or outdated.

This skill drives the one-time recovery needed before handing off to pr-shepherd. Once the branch is current, green, and every outstanding review comment has been triaged, it calls pr-shepherd and exits.

Narration — one line per step

Emit a short line before each step so the user can follow progress:

[takeover] step 1 — resolving PR #53004
[takeover] step 2 — branch is BEHIND master by 142 commits, restacking via graphite
[takeover] step 3 — 4 unresolved review threads, 1 actionable, 2 nit, 1 ambiguous
[takeover] step 4 — running hogli test --changed
[takeover] step 5 — handing off to pr-shepherd

Graphite MCP is mandatory

All git operations (fetch, checkout, restack, commit, push) MUST go through the Graphite MCP. Do not fall back to raw git unless Graphite cannot express the operation. This matches the user's durable preference.

Workflow

Step 1: Resolve the PR and pull it down

Parse $ARGUMENTS as a PR number or URL. If unset or unparseable, ask the user for one and stop.

gh pr view <pr_number> --json number,headRefName,baseRefName,url,headRefOid,state,author,mergeStateStatus,title
gh repo view --json owner,name

Stop immediately if:

• PR state is MERGED or CLOSED — nothing to take over.
• The branch author is not the current user AND there is no visible signal they've abandoned it (recent commits, active reviews). Ask the user to confirm they intend to take it over before proceeding.

Use Graphite MCP to fetch and check out the PR branch locally.

Step 2: Bring the branch up to date with its base

gh pr view <pr_number> --json mergeable,mergeStateStatus

If mergeStateStatus is BEHIND, DIRTY, or UNKNOWN, or mergeable == CONFLICTING:

• Restack via Graphite MCP onto baseRefName (usually master).
• If Graphite reports conflicts it cannot resolve automatically:
  1. Print the conflicting files.
  2. Stop. Ask the user to resolve, then rerun this skill.

A clean restack is the whole point of the takeover — do not push broken merges.

After a successful restack, the HEAD SHA will have changed. Re-read it with gh pr view --json headRefOid.

Step 3: Triage unresolved review threads

Fetch all unresolved review threads (same GraphQL query as pr-shepherd Step 3). For each thread:

Classify as Actionable, NIT / non-actionable, or Ambiguous, using the same judgement rules documented in pr-shepherd §"Judgement rules for auto-actioning a comment". The thresholds are identical — do not re-derive them here.

Handle each class:

• Actionable — apply the edit, commit via Graphite MCP with a message like fix: address stale review comment <short summary>, push, then resolve the thread with a short reply noting the commit SHA. Include the bot-identifier header from pr-shepherd so it's clearly automated.
• NIT — resolve with a one-line reply explaining why (intentional, out of scope, disagree + reason).
• Ambiguous — leave unresolved. Surface in the final summary as "needs-human".

Step 4: Sanity-check the branch

Run the impacted test set to confirm the restack didn't break anything obvious:

hogli test --changed

If tests fail:

• Print the failing tests.
• Stop. Ask the user how to proceed. A stale-PR takeover is the wrong moment to guess at test repairs.

If tests pass (or the repo doesn't support hogli), continue.

Step 5: Hand off to pr-shepherd

At this point:

• Branch is up to date with master.
• Conflicts are resolved.
• Each unresolved review thread is either resolved, replied-to, or explicitly deferred.
• Impacted tests pass.

Print a short handoff summary:

[takeover] complete — sha=<short_sha> resolved=<n> replied=<n> deferred=<n>
[takeover] handing off to pr-shepherd to run the active review loop

Then invoke Skill("pr-shepherd", args="<pr_number>") and exit. The shepherd takes over from here and owns the ongoing qa-swarm / CI / stamphog loop.

Terminal conditions (stop cleanly, do not hand off)

• PR is merged or closed.
• Restack has unresolvable conflicts.
• Test suite fails after the restack.
• More than 3 review threads are classified ambiguous — the PR needs a real human conversation, not a shepherd. Print them and stop.
• The user interrupts.

Always print a final summary before stopping: commits pushed, threads resolved, threads deferred, reason for stopping.

Final summary format

[takeover] done
  branch:   <branch> @ <short_sha>
  rebased:  <yes|no|conflicts>
  commits:  <n pushed> (<short_sha> <message>, ...)
  threads:  <resolved>/<replied>/<deferred>
  tests:    <passed|failed|skipped>
  next:     <handed off to pr-shepherd|needs human — <reason>>

Dependencies

• Graphite MCP for all git operations.
• gh CLI for PR metadata and review-thread GraphQL.
• hogli test --changed when working inside the posthog monorepo.
• Skill("pr-shepherd") for the active review loop.

Graceful degradation

• No Graphite MCP available: warn and stop — this skill's whole point is a clean restack.
• No hogli: skip the changed-tests step, surface that the branch was not test-verified in the handoff summary.
• No pr-shepherd skill: stop at end of Step 4 and print the handoff summary as a manual checklist for the user.