Problem
The pr-review skill's Step 5 tells the reviewer to manually poll CI with
sleep 30–60s loops, while the running-in-ci skill says to use
gh run watch. This discrepancy causes sessions that follow pr-review
guidance to waste significantly more compute than sessions that follow
running-in-ci.
Evidence from the past 24 hours
| Session |
PR |
Approach |
CI poll iterations |
Notes |
| Run 22540574040 |
#1242 (renovate) |
Manual poll (pr-review) |
43 |
Self-authored, stayed silent |
| Run 22539129222 |
#1241 (nightly review) |
Manual poll (pr-review) |
8 |
Self-authored, stayed silent |
| Run 22540314728 |
#1241 (nightly review) |
Manual poll (pr-review) |
7 |
Self-authored, stayed silent |
| Run 22560341156 |
#1243 (dependabot) |
gh run watch (running-in-ci) |
0 |
Approved |
| Run 22560379238 |
#1244 (dependabot) |
gh pr checks --watch (running-in-ci) |
0 |
Approved |
The worst case — run 22540574040 — spent 43 iterations of sleep 60
(~43 min of runner time) waiting for the benchmarks job on a self-authored
renovate PR where the bot was going to stay silent regardless. The benchmarks
job clones rust-lang/rust and takes ~2 hours, completely unrelated to the
version-bump changes being reviewed.
Two sub-problems
-
Skill discrepancy: running-in-ci says "Wait for completion with
gh run watch" while pr-review Step 5 provides a manual
gh pr view --json statusCheckRollup template with "poll until complete
(sleep 30–60s between checks)." Sessions that happen to follow one skill
get efficient blocking waits; sessions that follow the other get expensive
poll loops.
-
CI monitoring on silent verdicts: Step 5 says "After approving, check
whether CI has finished" — but for self-authored PRs where the bot stays
silent (no approval posted), CI monitoring adds no value. There is no
approval to dismiss on failure and no comment to post. All three
self-authored sessions (runs 22540574040, 22539129222, 22540314728) still
monitored CI despite having nothing to act on.
Relationship to #1186
#1186 flagged the same CI waste pattern and was closed with "compute is cheap"
(#1189). The new evidence shows the problem is worse than originally reported
(43 iterations vs 6–9 previously) and identifies a concrete fix: align the two
skills rather than cap iterations.
Suggested fix
- Replace the manual
statusCheckRollup polling in pr-review Step 5 with
gh run watch (consistent with running-in-ci)
- Skip Step 5 entirely when the verdict is "stay silent" (self-authored PR
with no concerns, no approval posted)
Problem
The
pr-reviewskill's Step 5 tells the reviewer to manually poll CI withsleep 30–60sloops, while therunning-in-ciskill says to usegh run watch. This discrepancy causes sessions that followpr-reviewguidance to waste significantly more compute than sessions that follow
running-in-ci.Evidence from the past 24 hours
gh run watch(running-in-ci)gh pr checks --watch(running-in-ci)The worst case — run 22540574040 — spent 43 iterations of
sleep 60(~43 min of runner time) waiting for the
benchmarksjob on a self-authoredrenovate PR where the bot was going to stay silent regardless. The benchmarks
job clones
rust-lang/rustand takes ~2 hours, completely unrelated to theversion-bump changes being reviewed.
Two sub-problems
Skill discrepancy:
running-in-cisays "Wait for completion withgh run watch" whilepr-reviewStep 5 provides a manualgh pr view --json statusCheckRolluptemplate with "poll until complete(sleep 30–60s between checks)." Sessions that happen to follow one skill
get efficient blocking waits; sessions that follow the other get expensive
poll loops.
CI monitoring on silent verdicts: Step 5 says "After approving, check
whether CI has finished" — but for self-authored PRs where the bot stays
silent (no approval posted), CI monitoring adds no value. There is no
approval to dismiss on failure and no comment to post. All three
self-authored sessions (runs 22540574040, 22539129222, 22540314728) still
monitored CI despite having nothing to act on.
Relationship to #1186
#1186 flagged the same CI waste pattern and was closed with "compute is cheap"
(#1189). The new evidence shows the problem is worse than originally reported
(43 iterations vs 6–9 previously) and identifies a concrete fix: align the two
skills rather than cap iterations.
Suggested fix
statusCheckRolluppolling inpr-reviewStep 5 withgh run watch(consistent withrunning-in-ci)with no concerns, no approval posted)