PR Babysitter
Monitor a pull request until it's ready to merge, tracking comments and CI checks.
Installation
- Make sure Claude is on your device and in your terminal.
Skills load from
~/.claude/skills/when Claude Code starts up — so you need it on your machine first. If you don't have it yet, install it once with the command below, then runclaudein any terminal to verify.One-time setupnpm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-codeAlready have it? Skip ahead.
- Paste into Claude Code or into your terminal.
This copies the whole skill folder into
~/.claude/skills/babysit-thedotmack/— the SKILL.md plus any scripts, reference docs, or templates the skill ships with. Safe default: works for every skill.Faster alternative (instruction-only skills)
Skips the clone and grabs only the SKILL.md file. Don't use this if the skill ships Python scripts, reference markdowns, or asset templates — they won't be downloaded and the skill will fail when it tries to load them.
Quick install (SKILL.md only)Sign up to copy - Restart Claude Code.
Quit and reopen Claude Code (or any other agent that loads from
~/.claude/skills/). New skills are picked up on startup. - Just ask Claude.
Skills auto-activate when your request matches the skill's description — no slash command needed. Trigger phrases live in the skill's own frontmatter; you can read them in the “What this skill does” section above.
Prefer to read the source first? Open on GitHub.
When Claude uses it
Watch a pull request or review cycle until it is ready to merge. Use when asked to babysit, monitor, or keep checking PR comments, reviews, and CI until all actionable issues are resolved.
What this skill does
Babysit PR
Stay with the PR until it is actually clean. Do not stop after one check pass if comments or review threads are still unresolved.
Workflow
- Identify the PR number, branch, and base branch.
- Confirm the PR is not draft and inspect mergeability, checks, review decision, comments, and review threads.
- Watch pending checks until they finish. Poll at a practical interval, usually 30-60 seconds unless the user asks for a different cadence.
- Read new comments and unresolved review threads. Treat bot summaries as useful, but verify actionable findings against the code.
- Fix real issues in focused commits, run relevant tests/builds, push, and return to step 2.
- Resolve stale review threads only after verifying the code or generated artifact now addresses the comment.
- Stop only when checks are passing or intentionally skipped, review decision is acceptable, no actionable comments remain, and no unresolved review threads remain.
GitHub CLI Checks
Use gh pr view for the coarse status:
gh pr view <number> --json \
number,state,isDraft,mergeable,mergeStateStatus,reviewDecision,headRefOid,statusCheckRollup,url
Resolve the repository owner/name before using GraphQL:
repo_json=$(gh repo view --json owner,name)
owner=$(jq -r '.owner.login // .owner.name' <<<"$repo_json")
repo=$(jq -r '.name' <<<"$repo_json")
Use GraphQL for unresolved review threads. Include pageInfo; omit cursor on the first page, then pass the previous endCursor with -f cursor="$cursor" while hasNextPage is true.
gh api graphql \
-f query='query($owner:String!,$repo:String!,$number:Int!,$cursor:String){repository(owner:$owner,name:$repo){pullRequest(number:$number){reviewThreads(first:100,after:$cursor){pageInfo{hasNextPage endCursor}nodes{id,isResolved,isOutdated,path,line,comments(last:1){nodes{author{login},body,createdAt,url}}}}}}}' \
-f owner="$owner" -f repo="$repo" -F number=<number>
Use this loop when a PR may have many review threads:
thread_query='query($owner:String!,$repo:String!,$number:Int!,$cursor:String){repository(owner:$owner,name:$repo){pullRequest(number:$number){reviewThreads(first:100,after:$cursor){pageInfo{hasNextPage endCursor}nodes{id,isResolved,isOutdated,path,line,comments(last:1){nodes{author{login},body,createdAt,url}}}}}}}'
cursor_args=()
while :; do
page=$(gh api graphql -f query="$thread_query" -f owner="$owner" -f repo="$repo" -F number=<number> "${cursor_args[@]}")
printf '%s\n' "$page" | jq -r '.data.repository.pullRequest.reviewThreads.nodes[]
| select(.isResolved==false)
| [.id,.path,(.line//""),(.isOutdated|tostring),(.comments.nodes[-1].author.login//""),(.comments.nodes[-1].body|gsub("\n";" ")|.[0:240])]
| @tsv'
jq -e '.data.repository.pullRequest.reviewThreads.pageInfo.hasNextPage' >/dev/null <<<"$page" || break
cursor=$(jq -r '.data.repository.pullRequest.reviewThreads.pageInfo.endCursor' <<<"$page")
cursor_args=(-f cursor="$cursor")
done
Filter unresolved threads with jq:
jq -r '.data.repository.pullRequest.reviewThreads.nodes[]
| select(.isResolved==false)
| [.id,.path,(.line//""),(.isOutdated|tostring),(.comments.nodes[-1].author.login//""),(.comments.nodes[-1].body|gsub("\n";" ")|.[0:240])]
| @tsv'
Resolve a stale thread only when the fix is verified:
gh api graphql \
-f query='mutation($threadId:ID!){resolveReviewThread(input:{threadId:$threadId}){thread{id,isResolved}}}' \
-f threadId=<thread-id>
Operating Rules
- Keep the watcher running while long checks are pending.
- If a generated file is part of the distribution, verify the source and generated artifact agree before resolving comments.
- If a bot reports an issue against stale code, confirm whether the thread is outdated or addressed in the latest head.
- Before final reporting, do one fresh sweep of PR status, unresolved threads, recent comments, and local
git status. - Report concrete evidence: latest commit SHA, check names and results, unresolved thread count, tests run, and any dirty local files left untouched.
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