prwatch

What needs your attention right now? prwatch answers that question for contributors with open PRs.

It was born from a real day: three PRs open in one repo, CodeRabbit reviews on all three, a Vercel deploy failure that was not the author's fault, and no way to see at a glance which PR actually needed work. Manually reading every review thread on every PR is the old way. prwatch ranks your open PRs by urgency with human readable reasons, so you open the right one first.

Install

Requirements: Node 20+.

git clone https://github.com/CloudCorpRecords/prwatch
cd prwatch
npm install
npm run build
npm link   # or run with npx tsx src/cli.ts

Set GITHUB_TOKEN (or GH_TOKEN) for the 5000 req/hr authenticated rate limit. Without a token it works at the 60 req/hr unauthenticated rate.

Related MCP server: gh-review-queue-mcp

Authentication

A token is optional. --repo mode and prwatch show work without one, since they never touch the search API. Account-wide reports (attention / list without --repo) use author: search, which GitHub restricts for unauthenticated callers on some accounts, so a token is recommended there. A classic token with no scopes is enough for public data; without one you get clear guidance instead of a raw 422.

CLI usage

prwatch attention                     # rank my open PRs by urgency
prwatch attention --user octocat --repo shadcn-labs/pdfcn
prwatch attention --json              # machine readable output
prwatch list                          # simple one line per PR
prwatch show https://github.com/shadcn-labs/pdfcn/pull/92

Example output:

[ACTION]  74  shadcn-labs/pdfcn#92
         feat: add Business Letter block
         - 4 unresolved review threads need a reply or code change (business-letter.tsx, business-letter.mdx)
         https://github.com/shadcn-labs/pdfcn/pull/92
[READY]   45  shadcn-labs/pdfcn#93
         feat: add Resume block
         - Approved and green, ready to merge.
         https://github.com/shadcn-labs/pdfcn/pull/93

prwatch show gives the deep dive: review state, every check with its conclusion, unresolved review threads with file and line, and the full attention breakdown.

MCP server

Same engine as the CLI, exposed over stdio for Claude, Cursor, and Cline:

Claude Code / Cursor config (~/.claude.json or MCP settings):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "prwatch": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/prwatch/dist/mcp.js"],
      "env": { "GITHUB_TOKEN": "ghp_your_token_here" }
    }
  }
}

Start it directly with npm run start:mcp.

How scoring works

Every open PR starts at 50 points and gains or loses urgency from signals:

Score is clamped to 0-100. Categories rank in this order: ACTION, BLOCKED_EXTERNAL, READY, WAITING, STALE. The report sorts by score, then category.

Two judgment calls worth knowing:

1. External blockers are not failures. A preview deploy that fails because a maintainer has to authorize it is GitHub-marked "failure", but no code change fixes it. prwatch detects known patterns (authorization required, sign in to deploy, waiting on team approval) and files them as external, so they never inflate your urgency.

2. Thread resolution is approximated. The GitHub REST API cannot say whether a review thread is resolved, so top level review comments from non authors count as open threads. Comments that suggest a change (code suggestions, "please", "consider", "fix") count as actionable.

Development

npm install
npm test        # tsx --test test/*.test.ts
npm run build   # tsc, emits to dist/
npm run dev     # run the CLI from source

Fixtures in test/fixtures/ are modeled on the real shapes of shadcn-labs/pdfcn PRs #92, #93, and #94 from 2026-10-13. Tests never touch the network.

License

MIT. Copyright (c) 2026 Rene Turcios. See LICENSE.

The toolkit

This tool is one of four in a lifecycle for open-source contribution work, all published under the @reneturcios npm scope and each available as a CLI and an MCP server (<tool> mcp):

1. gatefile (npx @reneturcios/gatefile) extracts a repo's contribution gates into a committed contribution-gates.json.

2. greenlight (npx @reneturcios/greenlight) pre-flights issues (GO / RISKY / TAKEN / GATED / STALE), consumes gatefile's output in check and scan, then claims, preps, and opens PRs.

3. claimcheck (npx @reneturcios/claimcheck) watches for stale claims and fixes parked on forks.

4. prwatch (npx @reneturcios/prwatch) triages your open PRs by what needs you right now.