babysit

name	babysit
description	Shepherd an open PR to merge. Watches CI, fixes failures, addresses review comments, resolves merge conflicts, and enables auto-merge when green. Use after opening a PR, when the user says "babysit", "watch the PR", "get this merged", or as the final step of /ship.

Babysit

Goal: the PR merges, or you produce a precise statement of what's blocking it and why you stopped.

Loop

Poll with gh pr checks <number> and gh pr view <number> --json state,reviewDecision,mergeable,comments. Between polls, wait (sleep 60–120) rather than spinning.

On each iteration, handle whichever applies:

CI failed

1. gh run view <run-id> --log-failed — read the actual failure, not the job name.
2. Classify:
   • Real failure caused by this diff → fix it, commit, push. Re-verify locally first if the fix is non-trivial.
   • Flaky (known flaky test, infra timeout, rate limit) → retry once: gh run rerun <run-id> --failed. If it flakes twice, treat as real or escalate to the user — do not retry in a loop.
   • Broken on main (failure reproduces on the base branch) → report to user; do not "fix" main's problem inside this PR.
3. Loop guard: if the same check has failed 3 times after 3 distinct fix attempts, STOP and summarise the attempts for the user. Repeated retry loops burn tokens and hide a real problem.

Review comments arrived

• Address substantive comments with code changes; reply on the thread explaining what changed.
• For comments you disagree with, reply with reasoning — don't silently ignore, don't silently capitulate on things that matter. Flag genuine disputes to the user rather than arguing past two exchanges.
• Nitpicks (naming, style): just do them unless they conflict with repo convention.
• Never resolve a reviewer's thread yourself unless the repo convention is author-resolves.

Merge conflict

• git fetch && git rebase origin/<default-branch> (or merge if the repo's convention is merge commits — check history).
• Resolve conservatively: when in doubt about intent on the other side of the conflict, read the conflicting commit's message and diff before choosing.
• Re-run the test suite after any conflict resolution before pushing.

All green + approved

• Enable auto-merge per repo convention: gh pr merge <number> --auto --squash (check whether the repo squashes, merges, or rebases — look at recent merged PRs).
• Confirm merge completed; report the merge commit.

Exit conditions

Stop and report (do not keep polling indefinitely) when:

• Merged ✅
• Blocked on human review with no comments to action
• Loop guard tripped
• A failure needs a decision you shouldn't make alone (API change, data migration, security-relevant)

Gotchas

• Pushing a fix dismisses stale approvals in many repos — batch comment fixes into one push where possible.
• gh pr checks exit code is non-zero while checks are pending, not just on failure — read the output, don't branch on exit code.
• After a rebase, force-push with --force-with-lease, never bare --force.
• If required checks include external systems (deploy previews, security scans) that you cannot retry via gh, report rather than waiting forever; note the check name.