gastownhall PR Sheriff - Triage and Review Workflow
This skill delegates to the mol-pr-sheriff-patrol formula, which lives at
$GT_ROOT/.beads/formulas/mol-pr-sheriff-patrol.formula.toml and is shared
across all Gas Town rigs (gastown, beads, etc.).
Repo Scope
This rig (gastown/crew/max) is responsible for steveyegge/gastown only. The beads repo (steveyegge/beads) is handled by beads/crew/emma. Do NOT discover or triage PRs from repos outside your scope.
When loading the shared config, filter the repo list to only steveyegge/gastown.
Usage
/pr-sheriff [repo]
repo- Optional. If provided, overrides the default scope. If omitted, scan onlysteveyegge/gastown(this rig's scope).
How to Execute
1. Load the config:
cat $GT_ROOT/.beads/pr-sheriff-config.json
This contains crew mappings per repo and contributor policies (trust tiers, firewalled contributors, bot auto-merge rules). Only scan repos within your scope (see Repo Scope above).
2. Follow the formula steps in order:
gt formula show mol-pr-sheriff-patrol
The formula defines a 7-step workflow:
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| load-config | Load pr-sheriff-config.json, establish repo list |
| discover-prs | Find open PRs needing review across all repos |
| triage-batch | Categorize all PRs in one pass (preserves cross-PR context) |
| merge-easy-wins | Merge approved easy-wins via gh pr merge |
| dispatch-crew-reviews | Nudge crew for NEEDS-CREW PRs |
| dispatch-deep-reviews | Nudge crew for NEEDS-HUMAN PRs (full evaluation framework) |
| collect-results | Gather crew review nudge-backs |
| interactive-review | Walk through remaining NEEDS-HUMAN PRs with overseer |
| summarize | Print patrol summary |
3. For each step, read the full description:
gt formula show mol-pr-sheriff-patrol # Shows all steps with descriptions
Key References
- Patrol formula:
mol-pr-sheriff-patrol(town-level) - Crew review formula:
mol-pr-crew-review(dispatched to crew) - Deep review formula:
mol-pr-deep-review(dispatched for NEEDS-HUMAN) - Config:
$GT_ROOT/.beads/pr-sheriff-config.json
Contributor Policy Tiers
Loaded from config. Current tiers:
| Tier | Handling |
|---|---|
| bot-trusted | Auto-merge if CI passes (e.g., dependabot) |
| community | Normal triage — easy-win / crew / deep review |
| firewalled | Always NEEDS-HUMAN, never auto-merge, deep review required |
Category Decision Tree
Draft? → SKIP
Contributor firewalled? → NEEDS-HUMAN (deep review)
Dependabot patch bump + CI green? → EASY-WIN
<50 lines, obvious bug/doc/test fix? → EASY-WIN
Security/architecture/API change? → NEEDS-HUMAN
Multi-concern PR? → NEEDS-HUMAN
100+ lines new feature? → NEEDS-CREW or NEEDS-HUMAN
Everything else → NEEDS-CREW
Deep Review Evaluation Framework (NEEDS-HUMAN)
The deep review formula (mol-pr-deep-review) applies six lenses:
- Plugin/integration fit — core vs plugin/formula/integration?
- Tech-debt weight — complexity justified by user breadth?
- Contributor track record — first-time, repeat, or firewalled?
- ZFC compliance — structural checks, not string heuristics?
- Problem validity + solution fit — real problem, right solution?
- Splitability — can good parts be cherry-picked from bad?
Final verdicts: MERGE | CHERRY-PICK | REWORK | REIMPLEMENT | CLOSE
Output Format
For each PR, print a recommendation block:
### PR #<num>: <title>
Author: <login> | +<additions>/-<deletions> | <changedFiles> files
**Category**: EASY-WIN | NEEDS-CREW | NEEDS-HUMAN | SKIP
**Analysis**:
<1-3 sentences explaining the change and why it fits this category>
**Recommendation**:
<specific action>
Summary Output
## PR Sheriff Patrol Summary — <date>
**Easy-wins merged**: N
**Crew-reviewed and merged**: N
**Sent back for rework**: N
**Closed**: N
**Still pending**: N
Dispatching Work: Use Ephemeral Beads
When creating beads to track fix-merge work for polecats or crew, use ephemeral beads (wisps) rather than persistent beads. PR review/fix-merge tasks are orchestration scaffolding — they exist to give a polecat something to hook and track, not to create a permanent record.
Ephemeral beads are the right trade-off: they give polecats and crew trackable work items without polluting Dolt's permanent ledger with one-off orchestration noise. If/when beads are exported to permanent ledgers, review-task wisps won't clutter the history.
# Ephemeral bead for fix-merge dispatch
bd new -t task "Fix-merge PR #1234: description" -p 2 -l pr-review \
--wisp-type patrol
# vs persistent (avoid for orchestration work)
bd new -t task "Fix-merge PR #1234: description" -p 2 -l pr-review
The --wisp-type patrol flag marks it as ephemeral orchestration work that
the reaper will eventually clean up. The polecat/crew member can still hook it,
work it, and close it normally.
CRITICAL Rules
- All output is printed inline. Do NOT post comments to GitHub.
- The overseer decides what gets posted externally.
- Contributor-friendly: help contributors get to the finish line.
- Use
Co-authored-bytrailer when fixing up contributor work.