Cross-Repo Orchestration — Skill

Architectural note: This file covers scope inference, batch mutation strategy, fork/archive

handling, and rate limit budgeting. These are all cross-repo session concerns that must

be active together — you cannot infer scope without knowing how to handle forks, or apply

batch mutations without knowing the rate limit strategy. The single-repo module skills

(security, pr-management, etc.) are single-concept; this is the portfolio orchestrator

and is deliberately broader in scope.

Relationships: Loaded by commands/repo-manager.md when cross-repo mode is detected.

The nine module skills run per-repo within a cross-repo session; their findings are

aggregated here using the report template in repo-manager-assessment/SKILL.md.

If mutation strategy or scope inference logic changes here, update the design doc

(github-repo-manager-design.md §9.4–9.6) accordingly.

When This Skill Applies

Owner asks about multiple repos ("check all my repos", "which repos need X")
Owner asks a question scoped to a concern, not a repo ("any open PRs?", "security posture")
Owner asks to set up or modify configuration for multiple repos

Scope Inference

Infer which repos and modules to check from the owner's request:

| Owner Says | Repos | Modules | |-----------|-------|---------| | "Check community health across all my repos" | Public repos | Community Health | | "Security posture across everything" | All repos | Security | | "Any open PRs I should deal with?" | All repos with open PRs | PR Management | | "Which repos need a release?" | Tier 4 repos | Release Health | | "Wiki status" | Public repos (Tiers 3-4) | Wiki Sync | | "Dependency alerts" | Repos with code | Security + Dependency Audit | | "Stale issues" | All repos with open issues | Issue Triage | | "Any Dependabot PRs?" | All repos | PR Management + Deps |

Auto-Inference Rules

Community health → public repos only
Security posture → all repos
Wiki status → public repos with wiki enabled (Tiers 3-4)
Open PRs / notifications → all repos
Issue triage → all repos with open issues
Release readiness → Tier 4 primarily; also Tier 3 with releases (informational)
Discussions → repos with discussions enabled

Execution Flow

Discover repos:
```
gh-manager repos list --type all
```
Load portfolio config (if exists):
```
gh-manager config portfolio-read
```
Filter repos:
- Remove forks (unless explicitly included in portfolio)
- Remove archived repos (unless explicitly included as read-only)
- Remove repos with skip: true in portfolio
- Apply scope inference (e.g., public only for community health)
Classify each repo (tier detection):
```
gh-manager repos classify --repo owner/name
```
Use cached tier from portfolio config if available.
Run target module(s) against each repo.
Present cross-repo report (findings grouped by concern, not by repo).

Cross-Repo Report Format

📋 Community Health — Cross-Repo Report

Missing SECURITY.md (5 repos):
  ha-light-controller (Tier 4)
  DFBU-Dotfiles-Backup-Utility (Tier 4)
  Markdown-Keeper (Tier 3)
  ...

Skipped: 2 forks, 1 archived
  (forks: integration_blueprint, brands · archived: old-project)

Recommendation: SECURITY.md is highest priority. I can generate
a template and apply it to all 5 repos — PRs for Tier 4, direct
commits for Tier 3.

Want me to fix them all, or work through one at a time?

Cross-Repo Batch Mutations

Mutation Strategy Per Tier

| Tier | Method | Owner Interaction | |------|--------|-------------------| | 1 | Direct commit | Batch approval | | 2 | Direct commit | Batch approval | | 3 | Direct commit | Batch approval | | 4 | Pull request | PRs created, owner merges later |

Batch Execution

When the owner indicates they want to apply a fix across repos, use AskUserQuestion before proceeding:

I'll apply this to N repos:

Tier 4 repos (pull request — changes go into a draft PR for your review before merging): repo-a, repo-b

Tier 1–3 repos (direct commit — changes go live immediately to the default branch, no review step): repo-c, repo-d

⚠️ This will create commits/PRs on each repo listed above. Tier 1–3 commits are immediate and cannot be easily reverted if content is wrong. Tier 4 PRs remain as drafts for you to review before merging.

Use AskUserQuestion with options:

"Go ahead — fix them all" — proceed with the plan above
"Walk through one at a time" — apply one repo, pause for approval before next
"Cancel" — stop without making changes

Only after approval:

Generate content once (or customize per-repo if needed)

Apply to each repo using the appropriate tier mutation, emitting a progress line after each:

Tiers 1-3 (direct commit):

echo "CONTENT" | gh-manager files put --repo owner/name --path SECURITY.md --message "Add SECURITY.md"

Then emit: ✓ owner/repo-name — committed to main

Tier 4 (PR):

gh-manager branches create --repo owner/name --branch maintenance/add-security-md --from main
echo "CONTENT" | gh-manager files put --repo owner/name --path SECURITY.md --branch maintenance/add-security-md --message "Add SECURITY.md"
gh-manager prs create --repo owner/name --head maintenance/add-security-md --base main --title "[Maintenance] Add SECURITY.md" --label maintenance

Then emit: ✓ owner/repo-name — PR #N created

Report results grouped by mutation method:

Done. Here's what I did:
  Tier 4 (PRs created):
    ha-light-controller — PR #6
    DFBU — PR #12
  Tier 3 (committed directly):
    Markdown-Keeper — committed to main

Implication Warnings

Before executing any cross-repo batch mutation, note applicable consequences:

| Mutation type | Implication to surface | |---------------|------------------------| | Wiki push | Force-push overwrites any manually-authored content in the wiki that isn't mirrored in your source docs. | | PR creation | Creates notifications for any watchers or contributors on each Tier 4 repo. | | Direct commit to main | Immediately visible in commit history and any open PRs referencing that branch. |

Rate Limit Awareness

Before starting a batch operation, check remaining API budget:

gh-manager auth rate-limit

A cross-repo check against 20 repos can easily use 200+ API calls. If the budget is low:

I have ~150 API calls remaining (resets in 45 minutes). Scanning 20 repos for community health will use roughly 100 calls. Want to proceed, or wait for the rate limit to reset?

Fork and Archive Handling

Forks: Skipped by default. Forks have upstream conventions the plugin shouldn't override.

Archived repos: Skipped by default. All mutations return 403 on archived repos.

Both are listed in cross-repo reports as skipped. Owner can include either via portfolio config:

repos:
  integration_blueprint:
    skip: false    # Include this fork
    tier: 3
  old-project:
    skip: false
    read_only: true  # Archived — assessment only, no mutations

If the owner explicitly targets an archived repo:

ha-legacy-tool is archived, so it's read-only — I can't create PRs, push to wiki, or modify files. I can still assess its current state if you want a health snapshot.

Error Handling

| Situation | Response | |-----------|----------| | Repo fails mid-batch | Continue with remaining repos, report failure | | Rate limit hit mid-batch | Report progress so far, offer partial report | | PAT lacks scope for some repos | Skip affected repos, note which and why | | Config parse error | Report, use defaults, continue |