Dispatch inbound pull request reviews as background sessions that collect in `claude agents`. Use when reviewing multiple PRs, checking the review queue, batch reviews, or managing your review inbox across GitHub and GitLab. Pass --queue to dispatch an already-ordered queue.
Scanned 9/2/2026
Install to Claude Code
npx -y skills add bendrucker/claude --skill inbox --agent claude-codeInstalls into .claude/skills of the current project.
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---
name: review:inbox
description: >
Dispatch inbound pull request reviews as background sessions that collect in
`claude agents`. Use when reviewing multiple PRs, checking the review queue,
batch reviews, or managing your review inbox across GitHub and GitLab.
Pass --queue to dispatch an already-ordered queue.
argument-hint: "[--queue]"
disable-model-invocation: true
allowed-tools:
- Monitor
- TaskStop
- Skill(gitlab:merge-request)
- Bash(gh:*)
- Bash(claude:*)
- Bash(jq:*)
- "Bash(bun ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/:*)"
---
# Review Inbox
Dispatch inbound PR/MR reviews as background sessions. Each review runs as its own `claude --bg --agent review <url>` session, collected in the `claude agents` view. You fetch the pending queue and dispatch. Monitoring, completion, and worktree isolation belong to the agent view and the harness, not to you.
## Arguments
- `--queue`: dispatch an already-triaged, ordered queue handed in by a caller, rather than fetching your own. Default: off, the interactive flow that fetches and presents the queue below.
## Curated Queue
When `--queue` is set, another skill has already gathered, triaged, and ordered the reviews.
Skip [Fetch Pending Reviews](#fetch-pending-reviews) and [Present Results](#present-results). Take the queue from the invoking context as given and dispatch each review in the order received. Everything from [Dispatch Review Sessions](#dispatch-review-sessions) onward is unchanged.
## Fetch Pending Reviews
Both fetches return the `UNREVIEWED` bucket: PRs/MRs awaiting your first review. Approving, requesting changes, or starting a review drops an item. A re-request re-adds it.
#### GitHub
```bash
gh search prs --review-requested=@me --state=open --json number,title,url,repository
```
#### GitLab
Load `gitlab:merge-request` and run its `review-queue` command for the UNREVIEWED MRs across all projects. It emits `[{ url, reference, title }]` as JSON. The query and its review-state filter are documented and owned by the gitlab plugin; the inbox only delegates to it.
### Present Results
Combine results from both platforms into a summary table. Ask which reviews to start.
## Dispatch Review Sessions
For each selected review:
#### Resolve the Local Repo Path
The `review` agent checks out the PR branch with `gh pr checkout`, so the session runs inside a local clone of the PR's repo. Ask where the repo is cloned. If it is not cloned, clone it first. The path is required to dispatch.
#### Dispatch
```bash
bun ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/spawn.ts <pr-url> --repo-path <local-path> --data-dir ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}
```
`spawn.ts` runs `claude --bg --agent review <pr-url>` in the repo clone. The session collects in `claude agents`. On its first write (the review agent's `gh pr checkout`) the harness moves it into an isolated worktree, so parallel reviews never share a working tree. `spawn.ts` records the launched session in a dedup set and refuses a URL it has already dispatched, so a re-dispatch is a no-op.
Pass `--permission-mode <default|acceptEdits|plan|bypassPermissions>` to set the dispatched session's permission mode. Omit it to keep Claude's default.
## Monitor
Reviews collect in the agent view. Manage them there, not here:
- `claude agents` (or the `ca` alias) opens the live view, grouped into needs-input, working, and completed.
- `claude agents --json` lists sessions for scripting.
- `claude logs <id>`, `claude attach <id>`, and `claude stop <id>` inspect or control one session.
To see what this inbox has dispatched and cross-reference session ids:
```bash
bun ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/dispatched.ts list --data-dir ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}
```
## Lifecycle
A dispatched review runs to completion on its own and cleans up its own worktree. The inbox does not track or reclaim it. The dedup set only prevents double-dispatch. Manage it directly when needed:
- `dispatched.ts --reset --data-dir ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}` clears the set at the start of a fresh inbox session, so a re-requested review can dispatch again.
- `dispatched.ts remove --url <pr-url> --data-dir ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}` untracks a single review.
When you have dispatched the selected queue, present a summary of what you sent and point at `claude agents` for progress.
## Monitor Loop (Hands-Off)
The interactive flow above is the default: fetch once, present, ask, dispatch. The loop is the opt-in hands-off mode. It polls the UNREVIEWED queues on an interval and dispatches a session for each newly-arrived review without prompting, so the queue drains itself while you work elsewhere.
#### Wire the Review-Queue Sources
`poll.ts` knows no platforms. Each `--queue` is a command that emits an UNREVIEWED queue as `[{ url }]` JSON. Pass one per platform you want polled, and omit the rest:
- GitHub: `gh search prs --review-requested=@me --state=open --json url`.
- GitLab: load `gitlab:merge-request` and pass `bun <ABS>`, where `<ABS>` is the absolute path the gitlab docs resolve to for `scripts/review-queue.ts` (for example `/Users/you/.claude/plugins/cache/.../gitlab/skills/merge-request/scripts/review-queue.ts`). Write the resolved path out in full. Do not reuse `${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}` from the examples below: it points at this inbox skill, not gitlab, so it resolves to the wrong directory.
#### Arm the Monitor
Pass this command to `Monitor` with `persistent: true` and a descriptive label. `watch.ts` runs a single long-lived bun process: each iteration it reads the dedup set, fetches all `--queue` sources, and prints one URL per line per newly-arrived review. Each printed URL is one event. `${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}` below is the inbox's own directory, where `watch.ts` lives:
```bash
bun ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/watch.ts \
--data-dir ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA} \
--interval 300 \
--queue "gh search prs --review-requested=@me --state=open --json url" \
--queue "bun <ABS>"
```
A failed source emits a `{"type":"source-error",...}` line to stderr and contributes zero URLs, so one source's outage never stalls the loop. It is not suppressed.
#### Monitor Reliability
Two rules for any command you hand `Monitor`:
- Pass a **single long-lived process** that sleeps internally via `setTimeout`, not a shell `while/sleep` loop. This is a temporary workaround for a macOS `Monitor` bug: the eval context strips `PATH` (so `sleep` and `date` are not found) and kills backgrounded children with `nice(5) failed: operation not permitted`. When that harness bug is fixed, shell loops work again.
- **Never suppress poll output** with `>/dev/null` or `|| true`. A silent poll is indistinguishable from "nothing new". Emit a structured line on error so failures are visible.
#### React to Each Event
For each emitted URL, dispatch a session without prompting, reusing [Resolve the Local Repo Path](#resolve-the-local-repo-path). In unattended runs there is no one to answer the clone prompt, so skip any review whose repo is not cloned locally and report it rather than blocking the loop.
#### Pacing and Stopping
- A 300s interval is a reasonable floor: reviews arrive over minutes-to-hours and the queue sources hit rate-limited remote APIs.
- Call `TaskStop` on the `Monitor` task to stop early. Otherwise keep polling until told to stop (a re-request can re-add a review anytime).
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