Priority Management

Not all PRs are equally urgent. A critical security fix can jump ahead of routine changes:

Priority Levels

Typical priority tiers:

Priority	Use Case	Example
Urgent/Critical	Production incidents, security fixes	Hotfix for data breach
High	Time-sensitive features, blockers	Release deadline feature
Normal	Regular development work	Most PRs
Low	Non-urgent improvements	Refactoring, tech debt

How Priority Affects the Queue

When a high-priority PR enters:

1. It’s placed ahead of lower-priority PRs
2. Lower-priority PRs may be re-queued to test behind it
3. The high-priority PR gets tested first

Setting Priority

Priority can be set via:

• Rules — automatically based on labels, files changed, or PR author
• Commands — manually via PR comments

Best Practices

1. Reserve urgent for true emergencies - overuse defeats the purpose
2. Document what qualifies for each level - avoid priority inflation
3. Monitor priority distribution - too many high-priority PRs indicates a problem
4. Consider priority decay - PRs waiting too long could auto-promote