How do I install the Pr Shepherd skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add dylanpulver/pr-shepherd in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is Pr Shepherd safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with Pr Shepherd?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is Pr Shepherd free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published Pr Shepherd?

dylanpulver (@dylanpulver) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

Pr Shepherd by dylanpulver — Agent Skill

Name: Pr Shepherd
Author: dylanpulver

Pr Shepherd

Shepherd open PRs through a manual-merge workflow — assess risk, post consensus comments, propose merge order. Use when the user pastes a PR URL/number, says 'ok i merged X', 'whats next to merge', 'which of these are low risk'. Never merges.

dylanpulver e31775a 2.5 KB Updated Sep 17, 2026

File contents

pr-shepherd

The maintainer is the merge button by policy — the skill never merges. Everything around that button is this skill's job. Replaces ~150 hand-typed shepherding prompts/month and the retyped merge doctrine.

Doctrine (do not re-ask; do not drift)

Ignore CI status and review-required blocks. The maintainer bypasses branch protection and merges manually. Judge content risk only: what the diff does, blast radius, rollback difficulty, data/schema danger. Never say "blocked on CI" or "needs approval".
GitHub Actions billing failures are noise. Ignore them.
Never merge, close, or retarget without an explicit instruction naming the PR. ("hold up i didnt say to actually merge anything" must never happen again.)
Check the repo's target-branch convention in its CLAUDE.md/ledger before assessing (some repos target staging or develop, with main reserved for releases). Flag any PR targeting the wrong base as its own finding.

Modes

Assess (<PR number(s)/URL>): for each PR — one-line what-it-does, content-risk (low/med/high + why), conflicts?, wrong base?, merge recommendation. Then post the consensus as a PR comment (this is standing policy: "for each pr once we come to a consensus, we should add a comment to the pr noting the consensus we came to and why"). End with recommended merge order.

Next batch (next batch): list open PRs (gh pr list), exclude ones the ledger shows already assessed-and-waiting, surface the lowest-risk merge candidates in order, with one-line ELI10 of what each gets us.

Merged handback (merged <n> / "ok i merged X"): update the ledger, check nothing depended on it (follow-up PRs to rebase?), answer "what's next" from the remaining queue — no re-derivation, no re-asking about doctrine.

Ledger

.claude/pr-ledger.md in the repo — one line per PR: number, title, risk, consensus-comment link, status (open/assessed/merged/closed), date. Update it on every mode. This file is why "ok i merged 883, whats next" needs zero context.

883 | fix: retry payment-API token refresh on 401 | low | <consensus-comment link> | merged | 2026-07-14

After merges

Offer (don't auto-run) a channel update via the slack-reply skill (intent: update) covering the merged batch.

---name: pr-shepherddescription: Shepherd open PRs through a manual-merge workflow — assess risk, post consensus comments, propose merge order. Use when the user pastes a PR URL/number, says 'ok i merged X', 'whats next to merge', 'which of these are low risk'. Never merges.---# pr-shepherdThe maintainer is the merge button by policy — the skill never merges. Everything around that button is this skill's job.Replaces ~150 hand-typed shepherding prompts/month and the retyped merge doctrine.## Doctrine (do not re-ask; do not drift)- **Ignore CI status and review-required blocks.** The maintainer bypasses branch protection and merges manually. Judge **content risk only**: what the diff does, blast radius, rollback difficulty, data/schema danger. Never say "blocked on CI" or "needs approval".- **GitHub Actions billing failures are noise.** Ignore them.- **Never merge, close, or retarget without an explicit instruction naming the PR.** ("hold up i didnt say to actually merge anything" must never happen again.)- **Check the repo's target-branch convention** in its CLAUDE.md/ledger before assessing (some repos target `staging` or `develop`, with `main` reserved for releases). Flag any PR targeting the wrong base as its own finding.## Modes**Assess (`<PR number(s)/URL>`):** for each PR — one-line what-it-does, content-risk (low/med/high + why), conflicts?, wrong base?, merge recommendation. Then post the consensus as a PR comment (this is standing policy: "for each pr once we come to a consensus, we should add a comment to the pr noting the consensus we came to and why"). End with recommended merge order.**Next batch (`next batch`):** list open PRs (`gh pr list`), exclude ones the ledger shows already assessed-and-waiting, surface the lowest-risk merge candidates in order, with one-line ELI10 of what each gets us.**Merged handback (`merged <n>` / "ok i merged X"):** update the ledger, check nothing depended on it (follow-up PRs to rebase?), answer "what's next" from the remaining queue — no re-derivation, no re-asking about doctrine.## Ledger`.claude/pr-ledger.md` in the repo — one line per PR: number, title, risk, consensus-comment link, status (open/assessed/merged/closed), date. Update it on every mode. This file is why "ok i merged 883, whats next" needs zero context.`883 | fix: retry payment-API token refresh on 401 | low | <consensus-comment link> | merged | 2026-07-14`## After mergesOffer (don't auto-run) a channel update via the `slack-reply` skill (intent: update) covering the merged batch.

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