/iterate — Drive a PR to Merge-Ready

Iterate on a pull request until it passes all verification layers. You push, poll, fix, and push again — the loop only ends when the PR is green or a blocker requires human help.

No scripts — you are the orchestration loop. Uses only standard gh CLI commands that work on any GitHub repo.

Requires: gh CLI authenticated with repo access, a PR branch.

Discover what the repo has

Not every repo has all three verification layers. Before entering the loop, check which ones exist. Only poll layers that are actually set up.

gh workflow list --json name --jq '.[].name'

CI checks — almost every repo has these. If gh pr checks returns results, CI is present.
PR review bot — look for a workflow named like "PR Review" or "pr-review" in the output above, or check for .github/workflows/pr-review*.yml in the repo. If it's not there, the repo doesn't have automated PR review. Skip step 3 entirely.
QA bot — look for a workflow named like "QA" or "qa-changes". If it's not there, the repo doesn't have automated QA. Skip step 4 entirely.

A repo might have only CI. Or CI + review. Or all three. Your "all passed" condition is: every present layer is green. Don't block waiting for layers that don't exist.

The loop

Push and ensure a draft PR exists.
Poll each present verification layer.
Decide: all passed? fix needed? wait?
If fix needed — fix, commit, push, re-request review from bots, go to 2.
If waiting — sleep per polling cadence, go to 2.
If all present layers passed on the current SHA — mark PR ready, done.

IMPORTANT: pushing a fix is NOT the end. After every fix+push you MUST re-request review from the review bot (if present) and go back to step 2. The loop only ends when the verifiers pass on your latest SHA. Addressing feedback and pushing a commit is just one iteration — the bot needs to review the new code too.

Do not stop to ask the user whether to continue polling; continue autonomously until a strict stop condition is met or the user interrupts.

Step 1 — Push and ensure PR exists (as draft)

Create the PR as a draft. This prevents repo automations (merge workflows, artifact cleanup, auto-merge) from triggering while you're still iterating. You mark it ready only after all verification layers pass.

git push origin HEAD
gh pr create --fill --draft 2>/dev/null || true
gh pr view --json number,url,headRefOid,isDraft --jq '"\(.number) \(.url) \(.headRefOid) draft=\(.isDraft)"'

If the PR already exists and is not a draft, convert it:

gh pr ready --undo

Step 2 — Poll CI checks

gh pr checks --json name,state,bucket --jq '
  { passed:  [.[] | select(.bucket=="pass")]  | length,
    failed:  [.[] | select(.bucket=="fail")]  | length,
    pending: [.[] | select(.bucket=="pending")] | length }'

Zero failed, zero pending → CI green.
Any pending → wait and re-poll.
Any failed → diagnose (see "CI failure classification" below).

To inspect a failure:

SHA=$(gh pr view --json headRefOid --jq .headRefOid)
gh run list --commit "$SHA" --status failure --json databaseId,name,conclusion \
  --jq '.[] | "\(.databaseId)\t\(.name)\t\(.conclusion)"'
gh run view <run-id> --log-failed

Step 3 — Poll PR review (if present)

Skip this step if the repo has no review bot.

gh pr view --json reviews --jq '
  [.reviews[] | select(
    .authorAssociation == "OWNER" or
    .authorAssociation == "MEMBER" or
    .authorAssociation == "COLLABORATOR" or
    (.author.login | test("openhands|all-hands-bot"; "i"))
  )] | last | { state: .state, reviewer: .author.login, body: .body[0:300] }'

APPROVED → review passed.
CHANGES_REQUESTED → read the body and inline comments, fix code.
COMMENTED → may have actionable suggestions; read and decide.
No matching review yet → bot may still be running; wait and re-poll.

Inline review comments (when changes requested):

gh api "repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}/comments" \
  --jq '.[] | select(.user.login | test("openhands|all-hands-bot"; "i"))
        | { path: .path, line: .line, body: .body[0:200] }'

On a fresh iteration, existing pending review feedback should be checked immediately — not only comments that arrive after monitoring starts. Already-open review comments must not be missed.

Step 4 — Poll QA report (if present)

Skip this step if the repo has no QA bot.

QA reports are PR issue comments with a status line like Status: PASS.

gh api "repos/{owner}/{repo}/issues/{number}/comments" --paginate \
  --jq '[.[] | select(
    (.user.login | test("openhands|all-hands-bot"; "i")) and
    (.body | test("Status:\\s*(PASS|FAIL|PARTIAL)"; "i"))
  )] | last | { author: .user.login, body: .body[0:500], url: .html_url }'

PASS → QA passed.
FAIL → read details, fix code.
PARTIAL → some passed, some failed; read details.
No QA comment yet → bot may still be running; wait and re-poll.

Step 5 — Decide and act

For each present layer, check its status. If a layer is not present in the repo, treat it as passing.

All present layers green on current SHA → done.
CI failed → fix code, or rerun if flaky (see below).
Review requested changes → read comments, fix, push.
QA failed/partial → read report, fix, push.
Anything still pending → sleep per polling cadence, re-poll.
PR closed/merged → stop.

Priority rule: when both review feedback and flaky CI failures are present, prioritize review feedback first. A new commit will retrigger CI, so avoid rerunning flaky checks on the old SHA when you're about to push a review fix.

After fixing, commit, push, AND re-request review:

git add -A
git commit -m "fix: address <CI failure | review feedback | QA failure>"
git push origin HEAD

# Re-request review from the bot so it reviews the new SHA:
gh pr comment --body "Addressed feedback in $(git rev-parse --short HEAD). Ready for another look."
gh api -X POST "repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}/requested_reviewers" \
  -f 'reviewers[]=all-hands-bot'

Then go back to step 2. You are not done until the bot reviews the new SHA and all present layers pass.

CI failure classification

Use gh commands to inspect failed runs before deciding to rerun:

gh run view <run-id> --json jobs,name,workflowName,conclusion,status,url,headSha
gh run view <run-id> --log-failed

Branch-related (fix the code):

Compile/lint/typecheck failures in files you touched
Deterministic test failures in changed areas
Snapshot or static-analysis violations from your changes
Build config changes causing deterministic failures

Flaky / unrelated (rerun the jobs):

Network/DNS/registry timeouts
Runner provisioning or startup failures
GitHub Actions infrastructure errors
Non-deterministic failures in code you didn't touch
Cloud/service rate limits or transient API outages

If classification is ambiguous, perform one manual diagnosis attempt (inspect logs) before choosing rerun.

Rerun: gh run rerun <run-id> --failed

Retry budget: at most 3 reruns per SHA. After that, treat as real.

Read references/heuristics.md for a concise decision tree.

Review comment handling

The review polling in Step 3 surfaces feedback from trusted sources: human reviewers (OWNER/MEMBER/COLLABORATOR) and approved review bots (openhands, all-hands-bot, etc.). Ignore unrelated bot noise.

Review items come from:

PR issue comments
Inline review comments
Review submissions (COMMENT / APPROVED / CHANGES_REQUESTED)

When a comment is actionable and correct:

Fix the code.
Commit with chore: address PR review feedback (#<n>).
Push and continue the loop.
Reply to the review thread referencing the commit SHA.
Resolve the thread.

When a comment is non-actionable, already addressed, or you disagree: reply briefly explaining why, then resolve the thread. Do not leave threads dangling without a response.

If a review thread is already resolved in GitHub, ignore it unless new unresolved follow-up appears.

Replying to and resolving review threads

Every inline review comment creates a thread. After addressing a comment (or deciding it's non-actionable), you must:

Reply to the thread so the reviewer can see how you addressed it:

gh api "repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}/comments" \
  -F "body=Fixed — <describe what you changed>" \
  -F "in_reply_to=<comment_database_id>"

Use -F (not -f) for in_reply_to so it is sent as a number.

Resolve the thread via GraphQL:

gh api graphql \
  -f query='mutation($id: ID!) {
    resolveReviewThread(input: { threadId: $id }) {
      thread { isResolved }
    }
  }' \
  -f id="<thread_node_id>"

To discover unresolved threads and their IDs:

gh api graphql -f query='
query($owner: String!, $repo: String!, $pr: Int!) {
  repository(owner: $owner, name: $repo) {
    pullRequest(number: $pr) {
      reviewThreads(last: 100) {
        nodes {
          id
          isResolved
          path
          line
          comments(first: 1) {
            nodes { databaseId author { login } body }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}' -f owner="{owner}" -f repo="{repo}" -F pr="{number}" \
  --jq '.data.repository.pullRequest.reviewThreads.nodes[]
        | select(.isResolved == false)'

Rules:

Reply to every thread, even nits. A brief "Done" or "Kept as-is because…" is fine.
Resolve threads you have addressed. Do not leave resolved-in-code threads showing as unresolved in the GitHub UI.
Before marking the PR ready, verify zero unresolved threads remain.

Requesting re-review

If the PR is green but blocked on review approval and you've addressed all feedback, you can request another look — but only when the user explicitly asks, or after confirming with them (avoid spamming humans):

Leave a brief PR comment summarizing what changed:

gh pr comment <pr> --body "Addressed the requested changes in <sha>. Could you take another look?"

Do NOT tag humans.

Re-request reviewers via the GitHub API:

gh api -X POST repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}/requested_reviewers \
  -f reviewers[]=<reviewer>

Prefer requesting review only once per new head SHA. If the API returns an error indicating reviewers are already requested, treat it as non-fatal.

Polling cadence

CI pending or failing: every 30–60 seconds.
CI green, waiting for review/QA: start at 60s, back off exponentially (60s → 2m → 4m → 8m → 16m → 32m), cap at 1 hour.
Reset to 60s whenever anything changes (new SHA, check status, review comment, mergeability change).
If CI stops being green (new commit, rerun, regression): return to 30–60s.
After pushing a fix: re-poll immediately.
If any poll shows the PR is merged or closed: stop immediately.

Stop conditions

Stop only when:

All present verification layers passed on current SHA and PR is mergeable.
PR merged or closed (stop as soon as a poll confirms this).
Flaky retry budget exhausted (3 reruns per SHA).
Blocked on something requiring human input (infra outage, permissions, ambiguity that cannot be resolved safely).

Not a stop condition:

You pushed a fix. That's one iteration — keep going.
You addressed review comments. The bot still needs to review new code.
CI is green but review bot hasn't re-reviewed yet. Wait.
CI is still running/queued.
CI is green but mergeability is unknown/pending.
CI is green and mergeable, but waiting for possible new review comments per the green-state cadence.
PR is green but blocked on review approval (REVIEW_REQUIRED); continue polling and surface new review comments without asking for confirmation.

When done — mark PR ready

Once all present verification layers pass on the current SHA:

Verify all review threads are resolved (zero unresolved remaining).
Convert the draft PR to ready for review:

gh pr ready

Only do this at the very end, after the loop exits successfully.

Git safety

Work only on the PR head branch.
No destructive git commands.
Do not switch branches unless necessary to recover context.
Check for unrelated uncommitted changes before editing. If present, ask user.
After every fix, commit and push, then re-poll.
A push is not a terminal outcome; continue the monitoring loop.

Commit message defaults:

fix: CI failure on PR #<n>
chore: address PR review feedback (#<n>)

Output

Provide concise progress updates during monitoring:

During long unchanged periods, avoid emitting a full update on every poll; summarize only status changes plus occasional heartbeat updates.
Treat push confirmations, intermediate CI snapshots, and review-action updates as progress updates only; do not emit the final summary unless a strict stop condition is met.
When CI first transitions to all green for the current SHA, emit a one-time celebratory update. Preferred style: 🚀 CI is all green! 33/33 passed. Still watching for review.

Final summary should include:

Final PR SHA
CI status summary
Mergeability / conflict status
Fixes pushed
Flaky retry cycles used
Review threads resolved (count)
Remaining unresolved failures or review comments

References

Verification stack (layers, signals, retriggering): references/verification.md
CI/review heuristics and decision tree: references/heuristics.md