# Offer Dont Grab > To work an issue that's assigned to a maintainer, is the maintainer's own design, or has a dormant prior attempt: check whether the assignment is actually dormant (last activity, has the assignee ever commented, any linked PR), build a TDD-verified fix, then OFFER it — credit the prior work, ask the design question, open the PR on the maintainer's nod. Do NOT silently open a PR that grabs owned work. Assigned ≠ actively-worked; the rule is offer-don't-grab, not avoid-don't-touch. Use when the best-fit issue is already owned or has a stalled attempt. Trigger terms: assigned issue, dormant, stalled PR, "I'll take this", credit predecessor, revive, take over. - Skill: `serhiy-bzhezytskyy/offer-dont-grab` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add serhiy-bzhezytskyy/offer-dont-grab` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/serhiy-bzhezytskyy/offer-dont-grab/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: serhiy-bzhezytskyy (https://skillmd.com/u/serhiy-bzhezytskyy) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/serhiy-bzhezytskyy/offer-dont-grab --- # Offer, don't grab ## Purpose The best-fit issue is often already owned — assigned to a maintainer, or their own old design, or carrying a stalled prior attempt. The reflex "assigned, don't touch" leaves real value on the floor; the opposite reflex, silently opening a PR that grabs the work, burns trust. The right move is in between: confirm the assignment is *dormant*, do the hard verification work yourself, then **offer** the result and hand the maintainer the design authority. An assigned issue being taken is informative, not discouraging — it means you're reading the valuable area correctly. This is the **owned/dormant** case, distinct from greenfield triage where grabbing fresh unclaimed work is right. ## When to use - The prime-fit issue is assigned to a maintainer or is their own design. - There's a dormant prior PR/branch/POC on the issue. - You have (or can build) a real, tested fix and want to contribute it without stepping on the owner. ## When NOT to use The issue is genuinely unclaimed greenfield work — then just grab it; the offer ritual is for owned/dormant work, not fresh unassigned tickets. ## The practice (checklist) **1. FIND — confirm the assignment is dormant (a signal, not a stop sign)** - [ ] Check staleness: last activity date, **has the assignee ever commented**, is there any linked PR? Long-idle + assignee-never-commented + no PR = dormant triage-assignment, legitimately offerable. **2. VERIFY — earn the offer (do this BEFORE you speak)** - [ ] TDD red→green: turn the reporter's repro into a failing test first, prove it fails, then fix. The failing test is the evidence that makes the offer credible. - [ ] Self-red-team: run a wider regression sweep, not just the happy path; if it catches your own regression, that's a credibility win to volunteer, not hide. *Done when* the sweep is wider than the tests you wrote — the surrounding module's suite, compared against the same suite on clean `origin/main`. - [ ] Re-verify any parked/old fix on clean current HEAD before offering it. **3. OFFER — the comment that lands** - [ ] Lead with root cause + **credit the assignee's / predecessor's prior work**. - [ ] Frame it as a bug (quote the violated contract) where you honestly can. - [ ] Signal TDD ("test first (red) → fix"); volunteer any regression you caught. - [ ] **Ask the design question and hand them authority** ("is X the right place?"). - [ ] Open the PR **on the nod**, and credit the predecessor in the PR description. **Guardrail:** don't stack multiple open offers in the same subsystem with the same reviewer before the first lands — review bandwidth is the scarce resource. ## Rationalizations | Shortcut | Why it fails | |---|---| | "This issue looks abandoned — I'll just take it." | Ownership ≠ inactivity; check the dormancy signals, then *offer* and credit the predecessor rather than silently grabbing owned work. | | "It's assigned, so I shouldn't touch it at all." | The rule is offer-don't-grab, not avoid-don't-touch; a dormant triage-assignment leaves real value on the floor if you back off entirely. | | "I have the fix — I'll open the PR to prove it." | Do the verification, then offer and ask the design question; open the PR *on the nod*, so the owner keeps design authority. | ## RECEIPT **apache/solr JIRA SOLR-3284** (`corpus-solr-jira/jira-SOLR-3284.json`) — a 14-year dormant issue (opened 2012), reopened from a production angle and offered, not grabbed. A Solr committer, same day, verbatim: > "The proposal makes sense to me Serhiy; PR welcome :)" and on wrap-up: > "Feel free to link as you see appropriate. I leave it to you to pursue further > work here as it interests you. Thanks for getting this one done :)" → PR #4632 opened on the nod; merged. **Credit-the-predecessor, live (JIRA SOLR-17707):** "Picked this up — PR #4639 (supersedes the POC in #3273; [~predecessor], feel free to close it — credited in the description)." **Cross-project (journal):** jetty #13569, assigned to the project lead but dormant ~10 months (assignee never commented, no linked PR) — offered with a TDD fix + a volunteered self-caught regression, not grabbed. ## Lifecycle - **Signals it worked:** a "PR welcome" / design-nod before you open the PR; the predecessor engages positively or bows out gracefully; you get the design authority handed to you rather than a scope argument. - **What to log on a misfire:** an assignee who was actually active (misread the dormancy signal), or an offer that read as a grab — capture what made it land wrong. Record it in [`LEDGER.md`](../../LEDGER.md) (the jetty #15472 offer is logged there). - **Death criterion:** none foreseeable; assignment etiquette is stable across repos, though the *dormancy thresholds* are per-project. - **Relates to:** the owned/dormant case (assigned/claimed/stalled work) rather than greenfield triage. Adjacent to discuss-in-issue-first (both are "align before you drop a PR").