babysit

name	babysit
description	Multi-PR triage and parallel work dispatcher. Prevents single-PR tunnel vision by enforcing a survey-before-deep-dive protocol.

babysit — Multi-PR Triage & Parallel Dispatch

Prevents the most common agent failure: spending an entire session on one PR while other PRs rot.

When to use

• Session start (always, if repo has open PRs)
• After resuming from context compaction
• When the user says "bring PRs to green" or similar
• Any time you catch yourself iterating on a single PR for >15 minutes without checking others

Protocol

Step 1 — Survey ALL open PRs

gh pr list --state open --limit 100 --json number,title,mergeable,reviewDecision,headRefOid,statusCheckRollup,updatedAt --jq '.[] | . as $pr | "\(.number) | \(.title) | mergeable=\(.mergeable) | review=\(.reviewDecision) | ci=\((.statusCheckRollup // []) | map(select(.headSha == $pr.headRefOid)) | map(.conclusion) | group_by(.) | map({(.[0] // "pending"): length}) | add) | failed=\((.statusCheckRollup // []) | map(select(.headSha == $pr.headRefOid)) | map(. as $check | select(($check.conclusion // "") | ascii_upcase as $c | ["FAILURE","TIMED_OUT","ERROR","CANCELLED","ACTION_REQUIRED","STALE","STARTUP_FAILURE"] | index($c) != null and (($check.name // "") | test("Skeptic Gate"; "i") | not))) | length) | skeptic=\((.statusCheckRollup // []) | map(select(.headSha == $pr.headRefOid)) | map(. as $check | select(($check.name // "") | test("Skeptic Gate"; "i") and (($check.conclusion // "") | ascii_upcase as $c | ["FAILURE","TIMED_OUT","ERROR","CANCELLED","ACTION_REQUIRED","STALE","STARTUP_FAILURE"] | index($c) != null))) | length) | pending=\((.statusCheckRollup // []) | map(select(.headSha == $pr.headRefOid)) | map(select((.conclusion // "") == "")) | length) | \(.updatedAt[:10])"'

Note: --limit 100 covers repos with up to 100 open PRs. If your repo has more, increase the limit or paginate with --jq cursor-based fetching.

The failed=N count excludes Skeptic Gate checks (they are self-referential and tracked separately as skeptic=N). Use failed=N for Step 2 classification (needs-fix = failed > 0), and skeptic=N for skeptic-specific triage.

Mandatory. Do this BEFORE any single-PR work. No exceptions.

Step 2 — Classify each PR

Category	Criteria	Action
merge-ready	All 7-green gates: CI green (pending=0) + mergeable + review APPROVED + Bugbot clean + inline threads resolved + evidence authentic + same-head Skeptic PASS	Run full 7-green verification then merge
needs-fix	CI red (failed > 0), review CHANGES_REQUESTED, or skeptic FAIL	Spawn parallel AO worker per PR
blocked	CONFLICTING, depends on another PR, or external blocker	Log blocker, skip for now
stale	No activity >7 days	Close or ping owner

Step 3 — Spawn parallel AO workers

For each needs-fix PR that is independent (no mutual dependencies), spawn an AO worker per PR:

ao spawn --claim-pr N  // one per PR, uses AO worker model

Rules:

• Spawn ALL independent fix workers in parallel (one ao spawn per PR)
• Each worker gets: PR number, specific failure (CI test name, review thread, skeptic gate), and the fix scope
• AO manages worktree creation, session metadata, and CI monitoring automatically
• Max 5 concurrent workers to avoid context explosion

Step 4 — Monitor and collect

• Wait for workers to complete (they auto-notify)
• Collect results, push fixes, re-trigger CI
• Re-survey after batch completes to catch newly unblocked PRs

Step 5 — Escalate stuck PRs

If a PR needs >30 minutes of your own direct work:

1. Stop. Re-survey. Are other PRs getting neglected?
2. If yes, spawn an AO worker for the stuck PR and move on
3. If no, continue but set a 15-minute check-in timer

Anti-patterns (DO NOT)

• ❌ Spend entire session on one PR without surveying others
• ❌ Run ao skeptic verify serially on each PR — parallelize
• ❌ Fix one gate, push, wait, fix next gate — batch fixes before pushing
• ❌ Treat a context-resume summary as a single-PR task queue

Why this exists

Session 2026-05-12: 9 open PRs, entire session spent on #548 serially (6 commit/push/skeptic cycles). The "prefer parallel workers" rule was advisory, not procedural. This skill makes the triage+dispatch protocol mandatory.