Yellow Banner Trap
Definition
GitHub displays a yellow “Compare & pull request” banner on any branch with recent activity. This banner is not a kalamos pipeline signal. Clicking through and merging the suggested PR ships unfinished and/or broken code, because the kalamos pipeline may still be running on that branch (Coder → Builder → Shipper) and has not yet validated the change.
Why it happens
- GitHub surfaces any branch with new commits, regardless of whether CI is green or whether the kalamos Shipper agent has formally opened a PR
- Retry-titled branches (e.g.,
retry 1/2 — fix CI failure) are mid-pipeline by definition; they’re labeled “retry” precisely because the previous attempt didn’t pass CI - Branches stack their retries — merging a retry branch carries commits from previous unrelated tickets if the retry was based on a stale parent
What it looks like in practice
On 2026-04-26, 19 retry-PRs from the suggestion banner were merged on the CRMAPIGenerator master branch with failing CI. Result: master became unbuildable since PR #72. Recovery: git reset master 55d6e3f → 2187a36 (last green), delete 20 contaminated agent branches, reset 20 issues to todo.
Hard rule
Only merge PRs that the kalamos Shipper agent has formally opened with green CI. If a PR title starts with retry, do not touch it; it’s the pipeline talking to itself, not work ready to ship.
How to verify a PR is Shipper-opened with green CI
- PR author = the
kalamos-shipperGitHub bot account (or whatever the deployed Shipper agent’s git identity is for that customer) - PR title does NOT start with
retry - Status checks all green
- Reviewer agent or human reviewer has approved
Related
[[CRMAPIGenerator-Repository]]— the project where this anti-pattern bit[[Builder-MSBuild-Zombie-Reuse]]— different but related: build-environment hygiene