Base sheriff stale clock on blocker age

[pbakaus]

Summary

• Start the sheriff stale clock from the latest contributor-action blocker, not from PR creation.
• Require sheriff warning markers to be newer than the current blocker before allowing auto-close.
• Update stale warning/close copy to describe days waiting on contributor action instead of days open.

Why

On #307, a maintainer requested changes on an old PR and the sheriff warned the contributor less than a day later because the PR itself was old. The contributor should get a real response window after fresh maintainer feedback.

Validation

• node --test tests/github-sheriff.test.mjs
• node --check scripts/github/sheriff.mjs
• node --test tests/test-suites.test.mjs
• git diff --check
• bun run test:core
• Live dry run against pbakaus/impeccable: PR Allow context roots to be declared in .impeccable/config.json (decoupled from package managers) #307 now plans only remove=stale.

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Note

Medium Risk
Changes automated PR labeling, warnings, and auto-close behavior for all open PRs; incorrect blocker or marker logic could wrongly warn/close or leave stale PRs unmanaged, mitigated by broad test coverage.

Overview
Sheriff stale warn/close timing now uses days waiting on contributor action (waitingDays) from the latest contributor-action blocker (draft start, requested changes, unresolved threads, /sheriff wait, etc.), not total PR age—so fresh maintainer feedback on an old PR does not trigger an immediate stale warning.

Warning and auto-close gating no longer treats the stale label as proof a warning was posted. Only trusted marker comments (default github-actions / github-actions[bot]) count, and a warning must be newer than the current blocker before auto-close is allowed. Stale copy and projected close dates are anchored on the blocker timestamp plus closeDays.

Data loading paginates full issue comment history before evaluation (GraphQL comments(last: 50) is only a seed), adds draft timeline events for when draft waiting started, and splits label vs draft timeline slices in the GraphQL query. Tests cover hydration, untrusted markers, draft transitions, and the #307-style scenario.

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View logs

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

This PR updates the GitHub sheriff bot to measure stale PR handling from contributor-action blocker age. The main changes are:

• Stale warning and close decisions now use waitingDays instead of total days open.
• Auto-close now requires a trusted warning marker newer than the current blocker.
• Issue comments are fully hydrated before evaluation so older sheriff markers are included.
• Draft and label timeline events are normalized from separate GraphQL timeline slices.
• Tests cover blocker-age timing, trusted markers, comment hydration, and draft transition behavior.

Confidence Score: 5/5

Safe to merge with low risk.

The changes are localized to sheriff stale-state calculation and include focused tests for the main edge cases.

No files require special attention.

T-Rex Logs

What T-Rex did

• The focused sheriff tests completed successfully with 35 pass and 0 fail.
• The sheriff syntax check completed successfully with exit code 0.
• The test suite registry check completed successfully with 3 pass and 0 fail.
• The diff check completed successfully with no issues (git diff --check exited 0).
• The core test run failed due to missing generated hook artifacts after sheriff tests passed, and the sheriff live dry run was blocked because gh auth status reports no logged-in GitHub hosts.

_{Ran code and verified through T-Rex}

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
scripts/github/sheriff.mjs	Updates sheriff stale evaluation to use contributor-action blocker age, hydrate full issue comments for trusted markers, and separate draft/label timeline normalization.
tests/github-sheriff.test.mjs	Adds tests for blocker-age stale timing, trusted marker handling, full comment hydration, and draft transition clocks.

Sequence Diagram

%%{init: {'theme': 'neutral'}}%%
sequenceDiagram
  participant Workflow as Sheriff workflow
  participant GH as GitHub API
  participant Eval as evaluatePullRequest
  participant PR as Pull request

  Workflow->>GH: Fetch open PRs with labels, comments seed, reviews, timeline slices
  Workflow->>GH: Hydrate full issue comments
  Workflow->>Eval: Normalize PR and evaluate
  Eval->>Eval: Find latest contributor-action blocker
  Eval->>Eval: Compute waitingDays from blocker age
  Eval->>Eval: Check trusted warning/close markers
  Eval-->>Workflow: Plan labels, warning, close
  Workflow->>PR: Apply labels/comments/close when --apply

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%%{init: {'theme': 'base', 'themeVariables': {"darkMode": true, "background": "#0d1117", "primaryColor": "#21262d", "primaryTextColor": "#e6edf3", "primaryBorderColor": "#8b949e", "lineColor": "#8b949e", "textColor": "#e6edf3", "edgeLabelBackground": "#161b22", "actorBkg": "#21262d", "actorBorder": "#8b949e", "actorTextColor": "#e6edf3", "actorLineColor": "#8b949e", "signalColor": "#8b949e", "signalTextColor": "#e6edf3", "noteBkgColor": "#373320", "noteBorderColor": "#d4a72c", "noteTextColor": "#f0e6c0", "labelBoxBkgColor": "#21262d", "labelBoxBorderColor": "#8b949e", "labelTextColor": "#e6edf3", "loopTextColor": "#e6edf3", "activationBkgColor": "#30363d", "activationBorderColor": "#8b949e"}}}%%
sequenceDiagram
  participant Workflow as Sheriff workflow
  participant GH as GitHub API
  participant Eval as evaluatePullRequest
  participant PR as Pull request

  Workflow->>GH: Fetch open PRs with labels, comments seed, reviews, timeline slices
  Workflow->>GH: Hydrate full issue comments
  Workflow->>Eval: Normalize PR and evaluate
  Eval->>Eval: Find latest contributor-action blocker
  Eval->>Eval: Compute waitingDays from blocker age
  Eval->>Eval: Check trusted warning/close markers
  Eval-->>Workflow: Plan labels, warning, close
  Workflow->>PR: Apply labels/comments/close when --apply

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_{Reviews (5): Last reviewed commit: "Base sheriff stale clock on blocker age" | Re-trigger Greptile}

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adjusts the GitHub “sheriff” automation so stale warnings/auto-close timing is based on how long a PR has been waiting on contributor action, rather than how long the PR has been open, preventing immediate warnings after fresh maintainer feedback.

Changes:

• Compute and expose waitingDays based on the most recent contributor-action blocker timestamp.
• Gate auto-close on a sheriff warning marker that is newer than the current blocker (not just the stale label).
• Update stale warning/close comment copy to describe “days waiting on contributor action”.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

File	Description
scripts/github/sheriff.mjs	Re-bases stale/warn/close logic on blocker age (waitingDays) and updates marker gating + message copy.
tests/github-sheriff.test.mjs	Updates existing tests and adds new scenarios covering the new waiting-days and marker-recency behavior.

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