# Bump Ark > Open or advance a Positron PR that bumps the Ark submodule to a given Ark PR (its head while open, its merge commit once merged) or to latest Ark main, with Positron e2e test tags. Use when the user runs /bump-ark with a PR number or "main" and optional @:tags. - Skill: `posit-dev/bump-ark` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 7 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add posit-dev/bump-ark` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/posit-dev/bump-ark/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: posit-dev (https://skillmd.com/u/posit-dev) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/posit-dev/bump-ark --- # bump-ark Opens a PR against `posit-dev/positron` that bumps the Ark submodule (`extensions/positron-r/ark`) to a target commit. Everything goes through the GitHub API via `gh`, so no local clone or working tree is read or touched, and it never force-pushes. ## Usage `/bump-ark [@:tag ...] [--confirm] [--dry-run]` - `` tracks one Ark PR across its whole life on a single branch `bump-ark/pr-`. While the PR is open the bump points at its head commit, so you can run Positron e2e against the dev branch. Once the Ark PR is merged, re-running `/bump-ark ` finalizes the same Positron PR to the merge commit on Ark main, turning the testing PR into the mergeable bump. Title: `Bump Ark to posit-dev/ark#`. - `main` bumps to the latest `posit-dev/ark@main` on a single branch `bump-ark/main`, advancing it in place on re-run. Title: `Bump Ark to latest main`. - `@:tag` arguments are Positron e2e test tags. `@:ark` is always included; the supplied tags are added and deduped. - `--confirm` advances the open `main` bump even when a colleague owns it (see below). Never pass it proactively. - `--dry-run` prints the assembled PR body to stdout and exits, touching no branch, ref, or PR. Only read-only `gh` calls run. Use it to preview the `Closes`/tags/release-notes/commits body for a target before deciding to open or update anything, e.g. if the user wants to see it first. The merge-commit finalize works for squash, merge-commit, and rebase merges alike, since GitHub records `merge_commit_sha` for all three. When the bumped PRs close Positron issues, the body opens with `Closes #` lines. Then the tag line, a `### Release Notes` section aggregated from the bumped Ark PRs, and a `### Commits` first-parent list of the Ark commits between the current submodule pointer and the target. Commits belonging to an unmerged PR collapse to one line per PR, in the squash-merge form they will take once that PR lands. The target's stack is found by matching each PR's base branch against the head branch of another open PR, down to the PR based on Ark main, so a stacked target contributes one line per PR in the stack. Release notes are scraped from each bumped Ark PR's `#### New Features` / `#### Bug Fixes` bullets, covering every PR in the target's stack rather than the target alone. `parse_description.py` is a vendored copy of `posit-dev/positron-release-notes`'s parser, so extraction matches the release-notes collector; `bump_notes.py` is the skill-local glue on top of it (section rendering, `Closes` collection). ## How to run Run the bundled script, forwarding the arguments verbatim. It needs `python3` and an authenticated `gh`: ```bash python3 .claude/skills/bump-ark/bump_ark.py ``` Re-running is always safe. Both bump kinds track one fixed branch and advance it by stacking a fast-forward commit onto its current tip (so the ref only ever moves forward, never a force-push), then refresh the title and description from scratch (commit list, release notes, `Closes` lines). A PR bump has no author check: its content is fully determined by the Ark PR, so collaborators converge on the same PR rather than clobber each other. A main bump is author-guarded: you can freely advance your own open `Bump Ark to latest main` PR, but if the open one belongs to a colleague the script refuses (it never touches their branch) and exits 3. When the script exits reporting that the main bump belongs to someone else, **do not re-run with `--confirm` on your own initiative.** Relay who owns it and its URL, and ask the user to confirm, for example: "The 'Bump Ark to latest main' PR belongs to @foo (). Advance it anyway?" Only if they explicitly confirm, re-run the same command with `--confirm` appended. The script prints the Positron PR URL to stdout (progress goes to stderr). Relay that URL. If it reports that the submodule is already at the target, relay that as-is instead. With `--dry-run`, stdout is the PR body instead of a URL, and nothing is created or modified: not the tracked branch, not its ref, not the PR. Use it only when asked to preview a bump; the default `/bump-ark ` invocation should not pass it.