[krokicki]

Problem

A quiet PR added an observe_pr activity and a timer to the history every poll_minutes, drawing a staircase on the Temporal UI timeline that hid the real work (the agent rounds, merges and escalations).

Change

Temporal's "infrequent polling" pattern: observe_pr fails (retryably) while decide() would WAIT, and the workflow calls it once with a fixed-interval retry policy. Retries add no history events, so the whole wait is one activity row on the timeline. A revision round still shows as its own cluster of activities between two long observe bars.

• ObserveInput carries the decision context (handled, revisions, max_revisions, escalated) so the activity can run decide() itself.
• decide() treats an escalation already raised for the same reason and head as WAIT; IssueInput.escalated records it, so an escalated PR polls quietly instead of hot-looping on the same escalation.
• A failed merge still sleeps one poll interval before re-observing, so GitHub is not hammered when a PR stays approved but unmergeable. That is now the only timer in the loop.
• The old loop stays behind workflow.patched("observe-by-retry") so in-flight runs replay. Those runs get an unbounded retry budget on observe_pr so they do not fail after six quiet hours. Drop the old branch once pre-change runs have rolled over.

Only IssueWorkflow polled with a timer; PollWorkflow and the mia_data workflows are unaffected.

Tests

• New workflow test: an escalation is commented once and then waits (fails if the gate is removed).
• New decide test for the escalation gate.
• Activity tests that inspected a WAIT snapshot now assert the retryable error; the ETag cache test calls the snapshot helper directly.
• The continue-as-new test caps at one poll per execution so it still exercises the rollover.
• The recorded-history replay test passes unchanged, confirming in-flight runs keep replaying.

330 passed, ruff clean.

Behaviour notes

A transient GitHub error during a poll now waits a full poll interval before retrying instead of backing off from one second. Acceptable at a two-minute poll.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code