$ca-pr — open a pull request

The only permitted path to a pull request. Every change lands through a PR — never a direct write or force-push to the default branch. No PR is drafted while any BLOCK-level review finding stands.

Compatibility modes

--watch [PR number | URL | branch] loads and follows skills/ca-watch/SKILL.md with the remaining arguments. This is an internal resource handoff to the exact watcher contract, not a second host-command invocation.

--cleanup loads and follows skills/ca-cleanup/SKILL.md with no remaining argument. It retains the cleanup route's containment proof and per-item confirmations.

The flags are mutually exclusive. A bare or quoted title named watch or cleanup is not a mode; without either flag, continue with the unchanged PR flow below.

Flow

Routes to the finishing-a-development-branch skill, open-PR path. The orchestrator reads the current branch, its diff against the base, and the commit log to determine what changed and which reviewers apply, then:

1. Confirm the commit gate cleared this session (commit-gate green, or $ca-commit completed).
2. Path matrix — inspect the diff and dispatch the reviewer agents the change demands:
   • auth / crypto / middleware paths → auth-crypto-reviewer + security-reviewer
   • migration files → migration-reviewer
   • dependency manifests → dependency-reviewer
   • all paths → coverage-auditor
3. Run reviewers in parallel where there are no dependencies.
4. BLOCK check — any CRITICAL or HIGH finding STOPs the flow; present it and do not draft the PR. The user resolves, re-runs $ca-commit, then $ca-pr.
5. Stage the PR once all BLOCK findings clear: concise title; summary of what changed and why; a bulleted test plan; a conflict-hierarchy tradeoff citation for any non-obvious tradeoff; a link to any ADR the change implements or contradicts. The PR body is a user-facing deliverable: before composing it, load includes/anti-slop-design/core.md and the medium-documents leaf, and apply at least the §3.A em-dash ban and the §3.B copy self-audit to the prose. Then gh pr create; return the URL.
6. Auto-attach the babysitter — resolve the flag with the canonical resolver, never by eyeballing the env var (so the accepted on|true|1 spellings and the dormancy gate can't drift). Resolve the interpreter once by presence — PY=python3; { command -v python3 >/dev/null 2>&1 && python3 --version >/dev/null 2>&1; } || PY=python — never python3 X || python X, which reruns X on any nonzero exit (#577):

   "$PY" "${PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/babysit.py" --root "<project-root>"
   

   It prints one JSON line, e.g. {"enabled": true, "on_red": "propose"}. Only when enabled is true (the global flag CODEARBITER_BABYSIT is on — default off, mirrors CODEARBITER_PRUNE — and the repo is arbiter-active), attach a CI watcher to the PR just opened, equivalent to $ca-watch <new-PR>. When enabled is false, do nothing here — the user can still run $ca-watch ad-hoc. Never enable the flag on the user's behalf.

Routes to

finishing-a-development-branch (routines/finishing-a-development-branch/SKILL.md), open-PR path.

When NOT to use

• Staged changes not yet committed → $ca-commit.
• Review a diff without opening a PR → $ca-review.
• A pre-implementation security pass → $ca-threat-model.

Hard gate

MUST NOT open a PR while any BLOCK-level (CRITICAL or HIGH) finding is unresolved. MUST NOT skip a reviewer the path matrix requires. MUST NOT open a PR before the commit gate ran this session. MUST NOT open a PR, write, or force-push directly to the default branch. MUST NOT auto-attach a CI watcher unless CODEARBITER_BABYSIT is on, and MUST NOT enable that flag on the user's behalf.