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Pre-retro should early-exit for PRs that close retro-originated issues #812

Description

@fullsend-ai-retro

What happened

PR #4323 was a 12-line docs-only change implementing issue #4322, which was filed by fullsend-ai-retro[bot] based on findings from PR #4318. The retro agent ran a full retrospective on PR #4323 (workflow run 31840018302), dispatching multiple subagents and making dozens of GitHub API calls. The analysis found no actionable proposals — all improvement opportunities were already tracked by existing issues (redhat-developer/rhdh-plugins#4166, fullsend-ai/fullsend#5757, #649).

What could go better

When a PR closes an issue filed by fullsend-ai-retro[bot] and cleanly implements the proposed change, the follow-up retro is almost always wasteful. The original retro already deeply analyzed the root cause, identified the improvement, and specified the change. A follow-up retro on the implementation PR is unlikely to find new systemic insights because the analysis was already done. This is distinct from the general "mechanical PR" heuristic in agents#649 — it is based on the issue's authorship (retro bot filed it) rather than the PR's characteristics (small/docs-only). The signal is stronger: even a non-trivial retro-originated PR would be a poor retro candidate because the original retro already covered the root cause. Confidence: high — this pattern is structural and will recur every time the retro→issue→code loop completes successfully.

Proposed change

In pre-retro.sh (or the retro routing logic), add an early-exit check: when the PR closes an issue authored by fullsend-ai-retro[bot], and the PR is a clean single-commit change with low complexity (e.g., ≤50 lines of additions, ≤3 files changed), skip the retro with a log message like Skipping retro: PR implements retro-originated issue #N — original retro already analyzed root cause. The check should use gh api to inspect the linked issue's author. This heuristic complements agents#649 (mechanical PRs) with a distinct signal (issue provenance) and can be implemented independently.

Validation criteria

Over the next 60 days, retro-originated issues that produce clean implementation PRs (single-commit, ≤50 lines, ≤3 files) should trigger the early exit in pre-retro.sh, avoiding full retro analysis. Measure: zero full retro runs on retro-originated follow-up PRs that match the criteria, with log evidence of the skip. No false positives on retro-originated PRs that had substantive review feedback or required multiple fix iterations (those should still get a full retro).


Generated by retro agent from redhat-developer/rhdh-plugins#4323

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