What happened
The retro agent filed issue #2470 with two proposed approaches: (a) prevent cancelled status comments from being posted via a workflow if condition (if: steps.run-agent.conclusion != 'cancelled'), and (b) delete the comment in the harness after the fact. The triage agent recommended the deletion approach, and the code agent implemented it in PR #2472. A maintainer rejected the PR because the team considers PR timelines as read-only history that should not be mutated. The issue was closed as "won't do" and the PR was closed without merge.
What could go better
When an issue proposes multiple approaches — one that prevents unwanted artifacts and one that deletes them after creation — the triage agent should prefer the prevention approach. Deleting user-visible artifacts (comments, labels, timeline entries) is inherently more controversial than preventing them from being created. In this case, the non-destructive alternative (skipping comment posting via workflow condition) was explicitly described in the issue body but was not selected.
Confidence: Medium. The team might have also rejected the prevention approach, since even not-posting a cancelled status could be seen as hiding information. But the maintainer's objection was specifically about "deleting things" and "rewriting history," which suggests prevention would have been evaluated more favorably.
This is distinct from existing issue #1546 (validate against design decisions), which is about checking for explicit recorded decisions. This proposal is about a general heuristic: when choosing between approaches, prefer non-destructive ones. It does not require knowledge of team-specific design decisions.
Proposed change
Add guidance to the triage agent's instructions (in the triage agent definition or skill) establishing a preference hierarchy when multiple approaches are proposed in an issue:
- Prevent — Stop the unwanted artifact from being created (e.g., conditional logic to skip posting)
- Minimize — Reduce the impact without deletion (e.g., collapse, edit, or de-emphasize)
- Delete — Remove the artifact after creation (last resort, flag for human review)
When the triage agent identifies that an issue proposes a destructive approach (delete, remove, drop) alongside a non-destructive alternative, it should recommend the non-destructive option in its triage summary and note the destructive alternative requires human sign-off.
The specific file to modify would be the triage agent definition or its associated skill/prompt in the fullsend platform.
Validation criteria
On the next 3 retro-filed issues where multiple approaches are proposed (one destructive, one non-destructive), the triage agent should recommend the non-destructive approach in its triage summary. Track whether the resulting PRs have a higher merge rate than destructive-approach PRs.
Generated by retro agent from #2472
What happened
The retro agent filed issue #2470 with two proposed approaches: (a) prevent cancelled status comments from being posted via a workflow
ifcondition (if: steps.run-agent.conclusion != 'cancelled'), and (b) delete the comment in the harness after the fact. The triage agent recommended the deletion approach, and the code agent implemented it in PR #2472. A maintainer rejected the PR because the team considers PR timelines as read-only history that should not be mutated. The issue was closed as "won't do" and the PR was closed without merge.What could go better
When an issue proposes multiple approaches — one that prevents unwanted artifacts and one that deletes them after creation — the triage agent should prefer the prevention approach. Deleting user-visible artifacts (comments, labels, timeline entries) is inherently more controversial than preventing them from being created. In this case, the non-destructive alternative (skipping comment posting via workflow condition) was explicitly described in the issue body but was not selected.
Confidence: Medium. The team might have also rejected the prevention approach, since even not-posting a cancelled status could be seen as hiding information. But the maintainer's objection was specifically about "deleting things" and "rewriting history," which suggests prevention would have been evaluated more favorably.
This is distinct from existing issue #1546 (validate against design decisions), which is about checking for explicit recorded decisions. This proposal is about a general heuristic: when choosing between approaches, prefer non-destructive ones. It does not require knowledge of team-specific design decisions.
Proposed change
Add guidance to the triage agent's instructions (in the triage agent definition or skill) establishing a preference hierarchy when multiple approaches are proposed in an issue:
When the triage agent identifies that an issue proposes a destructive approach (delete, remove, drop) alongside a non-destructive alternative, it should recommend the non-destructive option in its triage summary and note the destructive alternative requires human sign-off.
The specific file to modify would be the triage agent definition or its associated skill/prompt in the fullsend platform.
Validation criteria
On the next 3 retro-filed issues where multiple approaches are proposed (one destructive, one non-destructive), the triage agent should recommend the non-destructive approach in its triage summary. Track whether the resulting PRs have a higher merge rate than destructive-approach PRs.
Generated by retro agent from #2472