Triage PRs

Goal

Turn a backlog of open PRs into a shipped set of merges in a single focused session. Produce a tracked, resumable plan (<VERSION>_PR_TRIAGE.md), then work it, rebasing where needed, merging in isolation-safe batches, applying post-merge follow-ups, and closing superseded or partially-applicable PRs with credit to their authors.

This skill pairs with draft-release-notes and release-bump: triage first, then draft notes against the new main, then cut the release.

When to use

• Before a minor or major release when 10+ open PRs have accumulated
• When you want to unblock merging without losing the narrative of what's landing
• When you know you can't personally review every PR deeply, but need to land the critical subset fast

Prerequisites

• gh CLI authenticated against the repo
• A dedicated worktree for PR review (avoid contaminating main with checkouts of contributor branches)
• Clarity on the target version, the triage doc is named after it (e.g. 0.4.0_PR_TRIAGE.md)

Workflow

1. Set up an isolated PR-review worktree

git worktree list  # check for stale ones first
git worktree prune
git worktree add ../voicebox-pr-review -b pr-review-<VERSION> main

Keep the main worktree for release-prep work (changelog drafts, direct-to-main follow-ups). Keep the review worktree for gh pr checkout, each checkout moves HEAD to a contributor branch, which you don't want to do in the main worktree.

2. Gather metadata for every open PR

gh pr list --state open --limit 50 --json \
  number,title,author,isDraft,mergeable,mergeStateStatus,files,additions,deletions,reviewDecision,statusCheckRollup,maintainerCanModify \
  --jq '.[] | {num: .number, title, author: .author.login, mergeable, state: .mergeStateStatus, canModify: .maintainerCanModify, changes: "+\(.additions)/-\(.deletions)", files: [.files[].path]}'