Pull Request Dashboards

• 1: Tagged PRs
• 2: Solo PRs
• 3: Ignored PRs
• 4: Inactive PRs
• 5: Archived PRs

1 - Tagged PRs

You can use tags to create your own categories to track important pull requests. You might create a tag to easily categorize pull requests:

• Going into a specific release
• Related to a new feature, even across repositories
• For a specific client
• Conforming to a certain naming protocol that has significance in your workplace, like “Feature” or “Bug”

You can apply tags to pull requests manually, or create filters to automatically tag incoming pull requests that meet criteria you define.

Once you have tagged pull requests, you can view and filter your tagged PRs in the Tagged PRs dashboard.

Tagged PRs Dashboard

In the Tagged PRs dashboard, each pull request summary displays a list of tags that have been applied to it.

You can filter PRs by tag, and optionally within a date range by one of the available date fields.

Filter PRs by Tag

You can filter PRs by tag using the Tag filter in the upper left-hand corner of the Tagged PRs dashboard. Select a specific tag to view only the PRs related to that tag. Or select the placeholder “Filter by Tag” to clear the tag filter.

Filter PRs within a date range

You can filter PRs within a date range in the Tagged PRs dashboard. Press the Filter by date button in the upper-right corner of the Tagged PRs dashboard. This opens the date picker.

Select a start date, and an optional end date. You can specify the type of pull request activity to use in the date filter:

• Created at date
• Updated at date
• Closed at date
• Merged at date

If a pull request has not yet been closed or merged, the closed and merged dates are nil, so the PR will not show up in either of those filters.

Press the Apply button to view only pull requests where the specified pull request activity falls within the date range. When you’re done, press the Clear button to remove the date filter.

Apply Tags to PRs

You can apply tags to a PR from two places:

• The right-click context menu available when you’re viewing pull request summaries in a list view. Right-click a PR summary, and select Apply Tags.

  

• The pull request detail view. Select a tag from the Apply Tags menu in the upper right-hand corner of the detail view, above the repository label.

  

Any tags that you’ve created appear in this menu, sorted by most recently updated.

When you apply a tag, the pull request summary gets a “Tag” icon.

The tag appears in the pull request detail view. And the tag is displayed in the pull request summary when you’re viewing the Tagged PRs dashboard.

Remove Tags from PRs

You can remove tags from a PR from two places:

• The right-click context menu available when you’re viewing pull request summaries in a list view. Right-click a PR summary, and select Remove Tags. Choose the tag you want to remove.

  

• The pull request detail view. Right click on a tag in this view, and select the Remove Tag option.

  

The tag is removed from the PR. If no other tags apply, the PR no longer appears in the Tagged PRs dashboard.

Create and Manage Tags

You can create and manage tags from the Tags menu.

Create a Tag

To create a new tag:

1. Go to the Tags menu.

2. Select Create a Tag

   

3. Provide a name for the tag.

   

4. Press the Create Tag button.

Rename or Delete a Tag

To rename or delete a tag:

1. Go to the Tags menu.

2. Select Manage Tags.

   

3. Click a tag name to bring up a sheet where you can edit the tag name. This automatically renames the tag in the menus, and on all PRs that have had the tag applied.

   

4. Press the Delete tag button to remove a tag from PR Focus. This automatically untags all PRs that have the tag applied.

   

2 - Solo PRs

In addition to watching a repository for every pull request that comes through it, you can watch individual pull requests - without watching the repository. You might want to watch an individual pull request:

• When the repository is too busy to watch the entire repo
• When you’re watching your own pull request in a repo you don’t normally visit, and want to know when it has activity
• When someone is proposing an important patch or update in a repo you don’t normally watch, and you want to know when it’s merged

You can watch these “one-off” pull requests in PR Focus. The app refers to pull requests that don’t come through watching a repository as a “Solo PR.”

How to Watch a Solo PR

To watch a solo PR:

1. Go to the Pull Requests menu in the menu bar

2. Select Watch a PR

   

3. Enter a GitHub URL for the pull request you want to watch, similar to https://github.com/swiftlang/swift/pull/74908.

   

4. Press the Watch PR button

This validates the PR URL, checks the GitHub permissions to confirm you can access the relevant repository, and enqueues a job to fetch the solo PR details. Once any running jobs are complete, PR Focus gets the PR details from GitHub.

View Updates to Solo PRs

Once PR Focus fetches the solo PR details, it appears in the “Watched” list in two dashboards:

• In the All Pull Requests dashboard (unless it falls under the rules to become inactive or archived)
• In the Solo PRs dashboard

PR Focus provides individual repository dashboards to let you focus on a subset of pull requests. If you’re watching a lot of repositories, or highly active repositories, the All Pull Requests dashboard may make it easier to miss updates. The Solo PRs dashboard serves this same purpose for pull requests that don’t fall into a repository dashboard.

PRs in the Solo PRs dashboard are sorted by updated date.

Unlike the repository dashboards and the All Pull Requests dashboard, pull requests never move out of the Solo PRs dashboard when they become inactive or archived. PR Focus assumes that pull requests you felt were important enough to add manually should not “get out of the way” until you manually stop watching them.

Stop Watching a Solo PR

You can stop watching a solo PR the same way you can stop watching PRs that come in through watched repositories:

• Right click a PR Summary to open the context menu, and select Stop Watching
• View the PR Details and press the Stop Watching button

However, unlike PRs that come in through watched repositories, when you stop watching a solo PR, PR Focus deletes it from the app. It does not go to your Inbox for you to re-process at a future time.

This is the only way to remove a pull request from the Solo PRs dashboard.

Solo PR Fetch Interval

Unlike watched repositories, you cannot customize the interval to fetch solo PRs. PR Focuses uses the “several times per day” interval to automatically fetch updates to solo PRs. You can manually fetch updates to solo PRs at any time by pressing the Fetch PRs button.

Watch a Repository Where You’ve Added a Solo PR

In some cases, you might watch a solo PR in a repository, and then later decide to watch the repository for all activity. When you Watch a Repository, PR Focus starts treating solo PRs the same as any other pull request that comes in through watching a repository. The solo PR no longer appears in the Solo PRs dashboard, and instead appears in the Repository Dashboard for the repository. If you stop watching a solo PR after you have started watching its repository, it moves to the Inbox for you to re-process at your convenience.

Customize Solo PR Repository Details

When you watch a solo PR, PR Focus creates a “hidden” repository that behaves differently than repositories you watch. It uses the repository name as the repo label on the PR Summary, and selects a random color for the repo label. Unlike a repository you’re watching, PR Focus does not provide the option to customize the repo name or label color for a “hidden” repository.

3 - Ignored PRs

From the PR Summary context menu, or when viewing PR details, you can access a button to Ignore a pull request.

You might want to Ignore a pull request if its status and details don’t matter to you. For example, if you’re watching a repository for user-facing changes, and a team puts up a pull request for internal refactoring, you may want to ignore the PR. When you press the Ignore button, the pull request goes into the Ignored PRs dashboard, which gets it out of your main dashboard views.

While a PR is ignored, but its status is still open, PR Focus continues to fetch updates to the pull request.

Ignored PRs Dashboard

This dashboard is a list of PRs that you’ve ignored, sorted by the repository where the PR originated.

You can access the Ignored PRs Dashboard by pressing the Ignored PRs button in the PR Focus sidebar.

The Ignored PRs dashboard does not have a counter. The PR Focus design assumes you do not need to pay attention to ignored PRs.

Stop Ignoring a PR

At any time, you can stop ignoring a PR. You might want to stop ignoring a PR if you have a reason to think you might need to pay attention to it, but you’re not necessarily ready to watch it. When you stop ignoring a PR, it moves out of your Ignored PRs Dashboard and into the Inbox.

To stop ignoring a PR:

1. Go into your Ignored PRs Dashboard.
2. Find the PR you want to stop ignoring.
3. Use the PR Summary context menu or click into the PR Summary to open the PR Details view.
4. Press the Stop Ignoring button.

If you want an ignored PR to move directly to your Watched PRs list, press the Watch button instead of the Stop Ignoring button. This automatically stops ignoring the PR and moves it directly to your Watched PRs list.

Unexpected Ignore Behavior

PR Focus is an opinionated app designed to prevent you from missing important pull requests that require your attention. It includes some important design decisions that may result in behavior that seems unexpected unless you understand the design rationale:

• Some PRs may not move to the Ignored PRs dashboard
• PRs may come back from the Ignored PRs dashboard without you doing anything
• You cannot delete an open PR - you can only ignore it

PR Not Moving to Ignored PRs

If you try to ignore a PR where you are an assignee, a reviewer, or where the PR is yours, it does not move into the Ignored PRs Dashboard. It stays in the relevant column in the Repository Dashboard and All Pull Requests Dashboard.

This is an intentional design decision to prevent you from missing important work that requires your attention.

PR Comes Back from Ignored PRs

If you have previously ignored a PR, but you later become an assignee or reviewer, the PR moves out of the Ignored PRs Dashboard and into the relevant column in the Repository Dashboard and All Pull Requests Dashboard.

This is an intentional design decision to prevent you from missing important work that requires your attention.

You Can Only Ignore - Can’t Delete - an Open PR

In some cases, you may want to delete a pull request instead of ignoring it. You might want to delete a pull request when you’re absolutely certain you don’t need to pay attention to it.

PR Focus does not allow deleting open pull requests. This is an intentional design decision, as PR Focus assumes you may eventually become a reviewer or assignee on an open pull request. Ignoring a pull request is intended to remove it from the pull requests you need to pay attention to, while preserving the ability to let you know if it moves into a state where you need to pay attention to it.

4 - Inactive PRs

Sometimes, a PR sits for a long time without progress. This may be because:

• A PR is blocked while waiting for external dependencies
• A PR is waiting for other contributors
• For business reasons, work on the PR is paused
• Many other reasons

In these cases, you may still care about the eventual outcome of the PR, but it becomes clutter sitting around in your regular PR Focus dashboards while no activity is occurring. You may not want to Stop Watching or Ignore a PR, but may want to get it out of your way.

This is the case that Inactive PRs solves.

Inactive PRs Dashboard

After some interval, a PR that hasn’t had updates moves to the Inactive PRs Dashboard. This dashboard is a list of PRs that have become inactive, sorted by the repository where they originated.

You can click into the PR Summary for an inactive PR to view the PR Details.

A PR becoming inactive is one of two ways in which a PR can move out of:

• My PRs
• Assigned PRs
• Reviewing PRs

The only other way a PR can move out of these columns is when it becomes archived, or if you are no longer an assignee or a reviewer.

You can configure the Days until inactive setting from:

• App Settings
• Repository Settings

The default value for this setting is 30 days.

Moving a PR Out of Inactive PRs

There is no way to manually move a PR out of the Inactive PRs dashboard and back into your Repository Dashboard and All Pull Requests Dashboard.

When a PR receives updates again, it moves out of the Inactive PRs dashboard and back into your Repository Dashboard and All Pull Requests Dashboard.

If you change the value of the Days until inactive setting to a longer time interval, PR Focus recalculates whether PRs should be inactive and moves any PRs that no longer meet this setting. In this case, PR Focus moves inactive PRs back into your Repository Dashboard and All Pull Requests Dashboard.

5 - Archived PRs

Some workflows call for you to be able to view PRs after they have been closed or merged. You may still want to see those PRs in your Repository Dashboard or All Pull Requests Dashboard for a period of time after the PR status has become closed or merged.

PR Focus is optimized for this case. PRs do not disappear from your repository views immediately when they get closed. Instead, they remain in your repository views for a number of days until they are archived. The default value for this setting is 10 days, but you can configure the number of days until a PR is archived.

Archived PRs Dashboard

After some interval, a PR that has been closed or merged moves to the Archived PRs Dashboard. This dashboard is a list of PRs that have become archived, sorted by the repositories where they originated.

You can click into the PR Summary for an archived PR to view the PR Details.

A PR becoming archived is one of two ways in which a PR can move out of:

• My PRs
• Assigned PRs
• Reviewing PRs

The only other way a PR can move out of these columns is when it becomes inactive, or if you are no longer an assignee or a reviewer.

Watched PRs also become archived, which automatically moves them from your Watched PRs list to the Archived PRs dashboard.

Configure the Archive Interval

You can configure the Days until archive setting from:

• App Settings
• Repository Settings

The default value for this setting is 10 days.

Immediately Archive a PR

You don’t have to wait until a PR moves to archived automatically. You can immediately archive a closed or merged PR:

• Right click on a closed or merged PR summary in a repository dashboard, and you’ll see the Archive PR option.
• Enter a PR detail view, and you’ll see the Archive PR option alongside the Watch and Ignore buttons.
• In the aggregate Inbox, you can press the Perform bulk operations button to enable multi-select. Select multiple closed PRs, and you can archive them all. If you select a PR that is not closed, the Archive button becomes disabled.

This option is not available for open PRs.

Un-Archiving a PR

You can un-archive a PR from the PR Detail view. Pressing the Un-Archive button returns the PR to whichever column it was previously in. Note that if the PR was archived automatically, un-archiving it is only temporary until the archive job runs again. For more details, refer to Configure the Archive Interval above.

Deleting Archived PRs

PR Focus provides the ability to delete archived PRs. When you’re viewing the Archived PRs dashboard, you can press the Delete PRs button to delete all PRs that are archived.

This button is disabled when a background job is running. If you’re unable to press the Delete PRs button, wait for background jobs to finish and try again.