Shepherd

Shepherd

Core principle

Keep an authorized PR or MR moving with evidence, not noise: poll, act on new actionable items, batch each target's local fixes into one push, then resolve addressed threads. Use affected local checks during repairs and required full checks on meaningful integrated candidates; use CI as confirmation. Never merge without explicit authority.

Do not start persistent polling for a one-off inspection, no open targets, or an action requiring human judgment; report the state and stop.

Procedure

1. Detect the platform with git remote get-url origin: use gh for GitHub and glab for GitLab. If it is ambiguous or unavailable, stop and ask.
2. Establish targets and a handled-ID snapshot. Every external comment, review, or thread absent from that snapshot is new, including pre-session feedback. After each poll record feedback IDs, CI state, and this controller's comments. Resolve reporting and repair ownership per target. Reuse a supplied delivery record and retained implementation owner. For a standalone PR without a delivery record, use its existing PR/reporting context and shepherd snapshot; hydrate source scope, base/head, prior verdicts, findings and dispositions from verified PR and repository evidence, marking missing evidence unknown. When no retained workflow owner exists, the authorized controller may own in-scope repairs after verifying the target checkout/head and absence of a competing writer; record that fallback before code writes or an implementation repair handoff. A read-only audit may inspect the verified frozen candidate while ownership or writer state is unresolved; report those gaps as material uncertainty, without granting write authority or clearing publication gates. Do not infer an owner handle from commit authorship. Preserve recorded owners; an unavailable owner, uncertain existing claim or unknown writer state holds code writes until reconciled, with writers quiescent before any explicit reassignment. This fallback supplies neither missing scope nor extra grants.
3. Before repeated polling, use one lowest-cost capable read-only evidence helper when available. Select and brief it using the shared selection and handoff reference when available. Give it targets and the snapshot; require new feedback IDs, body, location, review state, non-manual CI state, failed jobs, and log references. It never mutates. Keep triage, repairs, replies, pushes, resolution, retries, and merging with the authorized controller.
4. Poll with the platform CLI using provider commands, then compare complete review, comment, and CI state with the snapshot. Inspect failed logs only when needed. Do not reprocess old feedback or post a status-only update.
5. Triage new evidence before remote mutation. Fix clear requests and narrow formatting, lint, compile, or test failures; answer clear questions in-thread. Apply Behavioral review and repair for related boundary cases, the two-round convergence audit, review coverage and browser failure evidence. Use the reporting context and repair owner resolved in step 2; the authorized controller retains remote mutations. Escalate architectural or contradictory feedback, unfamiliar failures, non-obvious fixes, and out-of-scope conflicts. GitLab manual jobs are non-blocking unless instructed otherwise.
6. Handle each target in its own head checkout and batch known actionable items. Inspect failing logs and identify applicable local equivalents from actual workflow/check configuration before repairing. If evidence is missing, obtain it before guessing a fix; report checks unavailable on this host honestly. Run focused checks during repair and required full checks on the meaningful integrated candidate before pushing. Reuse valid evidence; repeat only checks invalidated by changes, unknown impact, or explicit repository/provider rules. Do not use CI as an iterative test runner or require full checks per slice commit. Hold the push while applicable required checks fail or lack evidence. Reply after an addressed change or answer; resolve its thread only after the reply and required push succeed. Do not combine heads, push after every comment, resolve a local-only fix, or comment when nothing changed.
7. Recheck CI after the verified repair push; return to step 6 on another code-related failure. Retry a suspected flaky GitLab job once without code changes; report a second failure. Poll pending checks every 2–5 minutes, active repair every 30–60 seconds, and after three or more unchanged cycles every 10+ minutes. Two unchanged cycles remain on the normal 2–5 minute cadence.
8. Merge only when requirements and CI are green, conflicts are absent, and the user granted explicit or standing merge authority. Do not infer authority from approval.