What “Skipped” means
When a PR is skipped:- MergeWatch receives the webhook but does not run any agents against the diff.
- The PR appears in the dashboard Reviews table with a status of Skipped and a reason explaining why.
- Skipped reviews do not count toward billing. You are only billed for reviews that run agents against a diff.
Skipping is not the same as ignoring files. When individual files match
ignorePatterns but other files in the PR do not, the PR is still reviewed — the matching files are simply excluded from the diff sent to agents.Auto-skip rules
The following conditions cause MergeWatch to skip a pull request automatically:| Condition | Default behavior | Override |
|---|---|---|
| Draft PR | Skip | Set rules.skipDrafts: false |
PR exceeds rules.maxFiles (default 50) | Skip | Raise rules.maxFiles |
rules.autoReview: false and review not @mergewatch-triggered | Skip | Set rules.autoReview: true or mention @mergewatch |
PR has a label in rules.ignoreLabels (default: skip-review) | Skip | Remove the label or adjust ignoreLabels |
All changed files match built-in trivial patterns (lock files, *.md, dist/**, build/**, node_modules/**, minified files, CI/editor config) | Skip | Pass the PR through by changing a non-trivial file too |
Bot comment loops are prevented at the webhook layer:
@mergewatch mentions from senders of type Bot are ignored outright. This is orthogonal to skip rules — it applies to comment-triggered reviews regardless of your config.Path-based exclusion
MergeWatch has two path-filtering mechanisms, and it’s important to understand they do different things:Built-in PR-level skip (not configurable)
If every changed file in a PR matches one of the built-in trivial patterns, the PR is skipped entirely with a reason like “Only docs changed” or “Only lock files + config changed”. This list is baked in — you can’t add to it or remove from it. Built-in patterns include: lock files (*.lock, package-lock.json, yarn.lock, pnpm-lock.yaml, Gemfile.lock, Pipfile.lock, poetry.lock, composer.lock, go.sum), docs (*.md, *.mdx, *.txt, *.rst, docs/**, CHANGELOG*, LICENSE*), build artifacts (*.min.js, *.min.css, *.map, dist/**, build/**, node_modules/**), and editor/CI config (.github/**, .vscode/**, tsconfig.json, renovate.json, .eslintrc*, .prettierrc*, etc.).
File-level diff exclusion (configurable)
excludePatterns (top-level) and rules.ignorePatterns both filter individual files out of the diff sent to agents. They do not cause PR-level skipping — the PR is still reviewed as long as at least one non-built-in-skipped file is present.
.mergewatch.yml
| Pattern | Matches |
|---|---|
*.lock | Any file ending in .lock at any depth |
dist/** | All files under the dist/ directory |
docs/*.md | Markdown files directly in the docs/ directory |
**/*.generated.ts | Generated TypeScript files at any depth |
Label-based skip
UseignoreLabels to skip PRs that carry specific GitHub labels:
.mergewatch.yml
ignoreLabels list, it is skipped. This is useful for bot-generated PRs (such as Dependabot or Renovate) that you label consistently.
Skip log
Every skipped PR is logged to DynamoDB with the following information:- Repository and PR number
- Skip reason (e.g., “All files matched ignorePatterns”, “Draft PR”, “Label: skip-review”)
- Timestamp
Disabling configurable auto-skip
If you want MergeWatch to review every PR regardless of draft status, labels, or file patterns, relax the configurable rules:.mergewatch.yml
Next steps
Review Behavior
Understand when reviews trigger, status values, and re-triggering.
Custom Instructions
Inject project-specific guidance into agent prompts.