Affinage

/affinage

Act on existing claims about a PR. Claims can come from reviewers, CI checks, or merge conflicts. Grade each claim through the /age lens. Send accepted claims to /cure.

/affinage always grades claims that exist on the PR. Its entry path controls whether it also finds new /age findings:

• Standalone — The user starts /affinage <pr> without handoff_context. Run /age on the PR diff unless the user passes --no-age. Add the new findings to the same report.
• Chained — /cook or /cure supplies handoff_context. Skip the fresh review because /age already ran in this chain.

See ## Fresh review for the entry rule. See ## Merge-conflict resolution for the conflict path.

Inputs

/affinage [<pr-ref>] [--auto --stake <floor>] [--plate] [--safe] [--open-pr] [--hard] [--full] [--include-outdated]

<pr-ref> accepts a PR number, a PR#<n> reference, or a full GitHub PR URL. Extract the integer before you call pr-status. The command accepts only the integer. If no reference exists, run gh pr view --json number on the current branch.

Flags:

• --auto --stake <floor> — Run without selection prompts. <floor> accepts blocker, high, medium+, or all. Bare --auto uses the medium+ default floor. Use the same floor rules as /cure. Send /cure --auto --stake <floor>. Post replies without prompts. See references/auto-mode.md.
• --safe — Add gates before cure selection and conflict resolution. This flag does not remove the default reply gate.
• --open-pr — Let terminal /plate open a new PR when no PR exists. Without this flag, /plate only updates an open PR.
• --plate — Run --auto --stake medium+ --open-pr. Grade the claims. Cure the selected findings. Post the replies. Then run /plate. An explicit --stake <floor> replaces medium+.
• --hard — Pass the metacognitive gate flag to terminal /plate.
• --full — Show all low findings when at least 10 low findings exist.
• --include-outdated — Include outdated review threads.
• --no-age — Skip the fresh review in standalone mode. This flag has no effect in chained mode.

Read ../cheese/references/harness-portability.md for portability rules. It covers helper resolution, agent dispatch, GitHub operations, and handoff transitions. Use the bundle or repository helper first. Do not use the ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR} environment variable in an invocation path. The handoff blocks below define the portable contract. The rule "slash commands are host renderings, not the control model" applies here.

Flow

Read references/flow-details.md for exact commands, exit codes, and grading reasons.

1. Resolve PR. Use <pr-ref> or gh pr view --json number. Normalize a PR#<n> reference or a PR URL to its integer. Resolve <owner>/<repo> from the Git remote.
2. Fetch PR status. Run affinage.pyz pr-status <pr>. Exit 3 stops with status: halt: pr-status-logs-expired. Any other nonzero exit stops with status: halt: pr-status-unavailable. Route a conflicting or dirty merge state to ## Merge-conflict resolution.
3. Run fresh review. Run this step only in standalone mode without --no-age. Score the PR diff and call age_route.route(...). Include the comment count and CI failure class. Run /age with the returned n, lenses, and effort values. Tag each new finding with [from-age:<dimension>].
4. Fetch comments. Fetch inline threads from pulls/<pr>/comments. Skip comments with position: null unless the user passes --include-outdated. Fetch review bodies from pulls/<pr>/reviews. Keep each nonempty body. Remove duplicates by pull_request_review_id.
5. Skip answered threads. Skip a thread when the resolved GitHub handle wrote its latest comment. Render the footer as agent on behalf of <handle>.
6. Grade claims. Classify each claim by the /age dimension and severity rules. Do not increase severity because a reviewer selected CHANGES_REQUESTED. Put contained fixes in severity sections. Put claims that need outside evidence in ## Needs-investigation. Put wrong, unsupported, or large claims in ## Reviewer-rejected.
7. Write report. Write .cheese/affinage/pr-<n>.md. Start with the four-line handoff slug. Add the /age report body and two affinage sections. See ## Output.
8. Act or ask. Follow ## Handoff.
9. Draft non-cure replies. Draft replies for rejected and investigation claims. Do not reply to CI or fresh-review findings.
10. Draft cure replies. Run this step only after /cure. Read ### Applied and ### Deferred from .cheese/cure/pr-<n>.md. Draft Fixed — <applied summary>. for applied comment findings. Draft Attempted fix reverted — <reason>. for deferred comment findings.
11. Post replies. Show one reply gate for every drafted reply. Skip the gate only when --auto is active. Post approved replies with affinage.pyz post-reply.
12. Publish. Run this step only after all approved replies post. Publish when /cure applies at least one fix. Also publish when /melt resolved a merge conflict. Send terminal /plate [--open-pr] [--hard] [--safe]. Then run the post-PR learning write-back from ../cure/SKILL.md. Skip publication and write-back when the working tree has no change.

Fresh review

Standalone mode calls the router with entry="affinage". Pass the PR reference and the router values to /age. This prevents /age from calculating a smaller route with entry="age". Add each result to its severity section with [from-age:<dimension>]. Send these findings to /cure like other findings. Do not post GitHub replies for these findings.

Run the fresh review before you grade external claims. This order lets you remove duplicate findings. Use the same agent gate as the grading step.

Merge-conflict resolution

When pr-status reports conflicts, send the PR to /melt. /melt uses mergiraf, rerere, and kdiff3. Do not resolve conflicts by hand.

Default and --auto modes run checkout and /melt before /cure. --safe requires the handoff gate first. If /melt fails, write status: halt: merge-conflicts-need-human and stop. /melt leaves the resolution uncommitted. Terminal /plate commits and pushes that resolution. See references/merge-conflict.md.

Sub-agent context gate

Keep dialogue, selection, approval state, and reply posting in the parent context. Use a fresh read-only reviewer when any limit below is true:

• More than 10 inputs exist.
• The diff exceeds approximately 25 KB.
• Threads cover more than 5 files.

Resolve the reviewer through the shared agent resolver. Use a general worker only with degraded: true. The reviewer returns a compact digest of graded findings. Each finding includes its dimension, severity, confidence, evidence, and draft push-back. The parent writes the report, controls selection, calls /cure, and posts replies. See ../age/references/sub-agent-gate.md for digest limits.

Preferred tools and fallbacks

Use code-intelligence-routing.md for source code operations. Use these affinage tools:

Output

Write the report to .cheese/affinage/pr-<n>.md. Start with the four-line handoff slug. Then add the /age report body and the ## PR status section. Use the severity sections from /age. Add the ## Needs-investigation and ## Reviewer-rejected sections from /affinage. See references/report-template.md.

status: <canonical status field>
next: cure | done
artifact: <path-to-prior-cure-or-press-report-if-any>
<one-line orientation: what the PR does and what was graded>

Use the canonical status: grammar from the handback contract. Only next: and the extra keyed lines are phase-specific. Omit empty sections. Use status: ok after grading completes. Use status: halt: <reason> when gh or pr-status fails. Set next: by the rules in ## Handoff.

Handoff

Pipeline: culture → mold → cook → press → age → cure → plate. /affinage runs parallel to /age and sends findings to /cure.

By default, affinage acts without a prompt. Ask only when the selected fix is large, findings conflict, or --safe is active.

• Severity findings exist. Calculate the recommended all-medium, cheap selection. Without an ask reason, announce the selection. Then send /cure the locked handoff_context. Then show one reply gate for every drafted reply. That gate covers the applied, deferred, push-back, and investigation replies. With an ask reason, show the cure selection gate instead. Use the shared gate in ../cheese/references/handoff-gate.md. Preselect the composite and identify large rows. --auto skips both gates.
• Only rejected or investigation claims exist. Do not call /cure. Show the reply gate. Then wait for a selection. --auto skips this gate.

Post approved replies after the selection. Run terminal /plate [--open-pr] [--hard] [--safe] only when the working tree has a change. A resolved merge conflict is such a change. Set status: ok / next: done when no action remains.

Set next: cure when at least one finding meets the medium+ floor. Set next: done when no severity finding exists. Also set next: done when the selected findings are empty.

Auto mode

Skip the selection gate. Resolve merge conflicts through /melt first. Stop with status: halt: merge-conflicts-need-human when conflicts remain. Run the fresh review in standalone mode. Select each finding that meets <floor>. --plate uses --stake medium+ --open-pr. Send /cure --auto --stake <floor>. Post replies for the original graded claims after the cure chain stops. Then run terminal /plate --open-pr [--hard] after every reply posts. Skip /plate when the working tree has no change. If no finding meets the floor, skip /cure. Post only rejection and investigation replies. Exit with status: ok / next: done. See references/auto-mode.md.

--hard mode

Pass --hard to terminal /plate. /plate runs /hard-cheese after it verifies the final artifact. /cure does not call /plate in this chain. The gate therefore runs once at the publication boundary.

Rules

• Ground each grade in code evidence.
• Prefer a contained fix to push-back.
• Send a valid, contained quality fix to /cure as Low.
• Reserve ## Reviewer-rejected for wrong, unsupported, or large claims.
• Never apply code fixes in affinage.
• Send code fixes to /cure and merge conflicts to /melt.
• Never post a reply without approval, unless --auto is active.
• Post replies only through skills/affinage/scripts/affinage.pyz post-reply.
• End every reply with agent on behalf of <handle>.
• Resolve <handle> from RESPOND_GH_HANDLE, gh api user --jq .login, or git config user.name.
• Skip a thread when the resolved handle wrote its latest comment.
• Use GraphQL reviewThreads only when cross-session resolution state is necessary.
• Apply the voice rules in ../age/references/voice.md.
• Use certain, speculating, or don't know for confidence.
• State that no findings exist when no claim needs grading.

References

Use these affinage references:

• references/flow-details.md
• references/merge-conflict.md
• references/report-template.md
• references/handoff-templates.md
• references/auto-mode.md

Use ../age/references/sub-agent-gate.md for the shared agent gate. See the generated command inventory in references/commands.md.

Agent resolution

Resolve each dispatch through ../cheese/references/agent-resolution.md.

The canonical affinage report includes the shared agent_resolution block.