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 6-green gates: CI green (pending=0) + mergeable + review APPROVED + Bugbot clean + inline threads resolved + evidence authentic	Run full 6-green verification then merge
needs-fix	CI red (failed > 0) or review CHANGES_REQUESTED	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. The DRIVER-mode contract is conveyed via the spawn prompt, not a CLI flag — ao spawn has no --driver option today (verified: packages/cli/src/commands/spawn.ts:287 registers --claim-pr and the other existing options, no --driver exists):

# Default one-shot dispatch (worker exits after one fix attempt):
ao spawn --claim-pr N  "fix PR N: <specific failure>"

# DRIVER mode — worker owns the PR until 6-green is confirmed:
# Pass the DRIVER mode contract in the prompt itself. The worker is told to
# iterate, not exit, and to apply the fix-all invariant below.
ao spawn --claim-pr N  "DRIVER MODE: take ownership of PR N and iterate until
                       ALL 6-green gates pass (CI green + CR APPROVED).
                       See DRIVER mode contract in .claude/commands/babysit.md.
                       Apply the fix-all invariant — fix ALL outstanding issues in
                       ONE commit. Do not exit until done or explicitly blocked."

Rules:

• Spawn ALL independent fix workers in parallel (one ao spawn per PR)
• Pass PR number, current specific failure (CI test name, review thread, skeptic gate) as a starting hint, and the fix scope. The fix-all invariant below still applies — "specific failure" is the FIRST thing to look at, not the ONLY thing to fix.
• DRIVER-mode steering must be specific: when babysit sends a correction to a DRIVER worker, the message MUST include file:line + exact change (e.g. "fix packages/cli/src/spawn.ts:42 by removing the redundant dryRun branch"). Generic "fix CI" / "keep going" / "CI is red" nudges are FORBIDDEN — they are the failure mode this skill exists to prevent. See .claude/commands/babysit.md "DRIVER mode contract" rule 4. Note: per the tenet above, do NOT suggest adding a --driver CLI option; the DRIVER contract is conveyed in the spawn prompt, never as a flag.
• AO manages worktree creation, session metadata, and CI monitoring automatically
• Max 5 concurrent workers to avoid context explosion

Fix-all invariant (mandatory for all PR workers)

Every worker spawned by babysit MUST apply the fix-all invariant — this OVERRIDES the older "one specific failure per push" pattern:

Before making ANY edits to a PR:

1. Collect ALL outstanding issues: CI test failures, CR review comments, Skeptic Gate findings, Bugbot errors, unresolved threads
2. Fix ALL of them in a SINGLE commit
3. Push ONCE
4. Wait for all bots to settle (CI, CR, Bugbot, Skeptic)
5. Re-survey — if new issues appeared, repeat from step 1

Why one-at-a-time is banned: each partial push triggers a full CI run (~5-15 min) and resets CR/Skeptic. A 5-issue PR fixed one-at-a-time = 5 CI runs = 25-75 min. Fixed in one batch = 1 CI run = 5-15 min.

Exception: merge conflicts must be resolved before other fixes (they block the push); resolve conflict first, then batch remaining fixes in the same commit.

Note: the "specific failure" hint passed to the worker is a starting point for triage, not a scope limit. The fix-all invariant requires the worker to enumerate ALL failures before editing — a single CR comment passed in the prompt does not authorize a single-CR-comment fix.

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

DRIVER mode — send specific fix when same failure persists (bd-snx3)

By default, babysit observes and reports — it posts status updates but does not steer workers. In DRIVER mode, babysit sends a specific ao send fix instruction when it detects a stuck-on-same-failure pattern.

Trigger rule (mandatory): if the same CI gate failure (same check name, same error class) appears in ≥2 consecutive polls for the same worker, babysit MUST switch to DRIVER mode for that worker.

What to send:

ao send <session-id> "DRIVER (babysit): <check-name> failing 2+ ticks.
Failure: <one-line description of the error>
Fix: change <file>:<line> — <specific patch in plain English>
Verify: <command to run before pushing>"

Do NOT in DRIVER mode:

• Do not send "keep working" or "fix CI" — that is the failure pattern this mode replaces
• If you cannot extract a specific file:line, push-notify the user instead of sending a vague message
• Do not paste raw gh run output — distill to one specific actionable instruction

Why: babysit's success metric was "status posted" not "failure fixed." Generic nudges do not move workers who have already tried and failed. Observed in PR #7618 (rate-limit) over 4+ hours with 15+ babysit status updates and zero progress. 2026-06-18.

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
• ❌ Send generic "keep working" or "fix CI" after 2+ ticks of the same failure — use DRIVER mode

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.