name: "gardener-history"
description: "Check what already happened before diagnosing a failure or proposing a change: commits since the failing revision, open pulls and their review verdicts, recent incidents."
createdAt: "2026-10-12T02:53:51.328070+00:00"
repoUrl: "https://skillz.supply/skills/did:plc:xbtmt2zjwlrfegqvch7fboei/skills.gardener-history/SKILL.md"
# gardener history You are working on a repository with other actors: the operator commits to main, earlier rounds of you may have opened pulls, and a reviewer (phi) has left verdicts on them. A diagnosis or a patch that ignores that history wastes a review cycle and, at worst, re-proposes a change that was already rejected. Check the history first, every round. ## where the history is 1. `.gardener/context.md` at the repository root, when present. The flow that started you writes it because you cannot reach the network: commits main gained after the revision you are looking at, gardener pulls already open for this deployment, and phi's latest verdict on each. Read it before anything else. 2. `git log` when you have a shell: `git log --oneline -20 -- <files you are about to touch>` and `git log <base>..main` for what landed since the base. Without a shell, the context file is your git log. 3. `docs/incidents/` and `docs/audits/` entries from the last few weeks that name the same component; the operator records root causes there. ## what to do with it - A later commit already addresses the failure: say so in your first line and end with `FIXED-ON-MAIN: <commit>`. No pull will be opened. - A pull for this deployment is already open: do not open another for the same change. If you are revising it, read phi's verdict and address the objection in substance, or explain why it cannot be addressed. Never resubmit the rejected change with a different title. - A reviewer called a fix a symptom patch (a cast, a retry, a broad except): look for the write path or the data that produced the bad state and fix that, or say why only the symptom can be fixed from this repository. - The incident note explains the failure: cite it, do not rediscover it. Say which of these you checked and what you found, in one or two lines, before the diagnosis or the change.