[skill] Use Version.Details.xml as VMR snapshot fallback for manual backflow by lewing · Pull Request #124129 · dotnet/runtime

lewing · 2026-02-07T07:29:33Z

Follow-up to #124109.

When someone runs darc vmr backflow manually and pushes directly (as happened on dotnet/sdk#52727), the PR body metadata stays stale and commit messages don't use the parseable Backflow from ... / <sha> format. The script previously fell back to the stale PR body SHA, giving inaccurate freshness and fix tracing results.

This promotes eng/Version.Details.xml's <Source Sha=...> to the primary snapshot source — it's what the build actually uses and is always updated by any backflow operation. The file is parsed as XML (with regex fallback), and validated as a 40-character SHA.

Snapshot priority

eng/Version.Details.xml <Source Sha="..."> — ground truth (parsed as XML)
Commit messages — Backflow from ... / <sha> — secondary / forward flow primary
PR body — Maestro's original metadata — last resort

Before (dotnet/sdk#52727 with manual backflow)

⚠️ No VMR SHA found in 9 branch commit messages — trusting PR body (c87e49a)
VMR is 7 commits ahead
Missing: sdk, runtime, command-line-api, fsharp
❌ Fix ([release/11.0-preview1] Revert [browser] Use Runtime=NET for build tasks #123974 revert) is NOT in the PR's VMR snapshot

After

⚠️ MISMATCH: Version.Details.xml has 87bc0b04 but PR body claims c87e49a
VMR is 2 commits ahead
Missing: fsharp only
✅ Fix IS in the PR's VMR snapshot

Also handles

Conflicted PRs ([main] Source code updates from dotnet/dotnet sdk#52885) — VD.xml correctly reflects pre-codeflow state
Closed PRs with deleted branches — graceful degradation
Normal codeflow — VD.xml confirms PR body ✅
Full SHA from VD.xml — skips redundant API resolve call

Tested against 5 codeflow PRs across dotnet/sdk, dotnet/roslyn, dotnet/aspnetcore, dotnet/runtime, and dotnet/sourcelink.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Improves reliability of GitHub “skills” automation scripts by (1) making VMR snapshot detection resilient to manual backflow commit message formats and (2) working around a Helix API artifact URI bug for subdirectory files.

Changes:

Add a fallback to read eng/Version.Details.xml on the PR branch to infer the VMR snapshot SHA when commit messages aren’t parseable.
Improve snapshot validation messaging (identify whether snapshot came from commit messages vs Version.Details.xml).
Rebuild Helix artifact file URIs from FileName for subdirectory artifacts and document the known Helix API issue.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

File	Description
`.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1`	Adds `Version.Details.xml` fallback and refines snapshot validation/status output.
`.github/skills/azdo-helix-failures/scripts/Get-HelixFailures.ps1`	Workaround for broken Helix artifact URIs for files in subdirectories by reconstructing URLs.
`.github/skills/azdo-helix-failures/references/helix-artifacts.md`	Documents the Helix API bug and the script’s workaround.

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1

.github/skills/azdo-helix-failures/scripts/Get-HelixFailures.ps1

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 1 out of 1 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1

Version.Details.xml's <Source Sha=...> is the authoritative record of which VMR commit a product repo branch is based on. Previously the script treated it as a fallback after commit message parsing. Now it's checked first, with commit messages as secondary confirmation. This correctly handles: - Manual backflow (darc vmr backflow pushed directly) - Normal codeflow (Maestro-managed) - Conflicted PRs (VD.xml reflects pre-codeflow state) - Forward flow PRs (skips VD.xml, uses commit messages) Tested against sdk#52727 (manual backflow) and sdk#52885 (conflicted).

-CheckMissing now scans open forward flow PRs (product repo → dotnet/dotnet) in addition to missing backflow PRs. For each forward flow PR it detects: - Conflict (Maestro 'Conflict detected' comment) - Staleness (opposite codeflow merged while PR was open) - Healthy (no issues) Summary section now shows both directions. Also fixes: dotnet-maestro comment author matching (gh CLI returns 'dotnet-maestro' not 'dotnet-maestro[bot]' for login field). Tested against dotnet/sdk (4 forward PRs: 2 healthy, 1 stale, 1 conflict) and dotnet/runtime (3 forward PRs: 2 healthy, 1 stale).

- Use 2>$null instead of 2>&1 for gh pr view to prevent stderr corrupting JSON stream - Wrap ConvertFrom-Json in try/catch for forward flow PR details - Tighten regex fallback to require exactly 40-char hex SHA - Use case-insensitive StringComparison for SHA matching

Copilot

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1:265

Forward-flow lookup derives $repoShortName by stripping only the dotnet/ prefix. If -Repository is ever used with a non-dotnet/* repo, this produces an invalid search string (e.g., dotnet/otherOwner/repo). Consider deriving the repo name via ($Repository -split '/',2)[1] (or parsing owner/name once) so the search is robust and independent of the owner.

            Write-Host "    ✅ Open backflow PR #$($openBranches[$branchName]) exists" -ForegroundColor Green
            $coveredCount++

Copilot · 2026-02-07T17:25:15Z

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1

 $branchVmrCommit = $null
+$commitMsgVmrCommit = $null
+$versionDetailsVmrCommit = $null
+
+# First: check eng/Version.Details.xml on the PR branch (authoritative source)


Invoke-GitHubApi -Raw currently merges stderr into stdout (2>&1). If gh api emits non-fatal warnings on stderr, they can get mixed into $vdContent and break XML/regex parsing here. Consider changing Invoke-GitHubApi (or this callsite) to keep stderr separate for successful raw responses.

Copilot · 2026-02-07T17:25:16Z

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1

    # Get current branch HEAD (URL-encode branch name for path segments with /)
    $encodedBranch = [uri]::EscapeDataString($vmrBranch)
    $branchHead = Invoke-GitHubApi "/repos/$freshnessRepo/commits/$encodedBranch"
    if ($branchHead) {


$vmrCommit.StartsWith($versionDetailsVmrCommit) is case-sensitive by default. Since earlier comparisons use OrdinalIgnoreCase, this can mislabel the snapshot source when the SHA casing differs. Use an explicit StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase (or normalize SHAs) for consistent behavior.

Copilot · 2026-02-07T17:25:16Z

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1


+    # --- Forward flow: check PRs from this repo into the VMR ---
+    $repoShortName = $Repository -replace '^dotnet/', ''
+    Write-Host ""
+    Write-Section "Forward flow PRs ($Repository → dotnet/dotnet)"


The forward-flow scan can trigger up to 50 per-PR gh pr view calls (each requesting comments). This can be slow and can hit GitHub API rate limits. Consider lowering the search limit and/or avoiding fetching full comment lists unless needed to keep -CheckMissing responsive.

Copilot · 2026-02-07T17:25:16Z

.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1

            Write-Host "  Branch: $branchName" -ForegroundColor White
            Write-Host "    ✅ Open backflow PR #$($openBranches[$branchName]) exists" -ForegroundColor Green
            $coveredCount++
        }


PR description/title focus on Version.Details.xml snapshot fallback, but this hunk also adds a new forward-flow PR scan in -CheckMissing output. Please update the PR description to mention this additional behavior (or split it into a separate PR) so scope/intent are clear.

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings February 7, 2026 07:29

github-actions bot added the needs-area-label An area label is needed to ensure this gets routed to the appropriate area owners label Feb 7, 2026

dotnet-policy-service bot assigned lewing Feb 7, 2026

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of lewing February 7, 2026 07:30 View session

lewing requested review from ViktorHofer and jeffhandley February 7, 2026 07:30

lewing added the area-skills Agent Skills label Feb 7, 2026

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.github/skills/vmr-codeflow-status/scripts/Get-CodeflowStatus.ps1 Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

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.github/skills/azdo-helix-failures/scripts/Get-HelixFailures.ps1 Show resolved Hide resolved

lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch 2 times, most recently from b9b70b4 to 3090c43 Compare February 7, 2026 07:40

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lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch from 3090c43 to 3969355 Compare February 7, 2026 07:47

lewing changed the title ~~Use Version.Details.xml as VMR snapshot fallback for manual backflow~~ [skill] Use Version.Details.xml as VMR snapshot fallback for manual backflow Feb 7, 2026

lewing removed the needs-area-label An area label is needed to ensure this gets routed to the appropriate area owners label Feb 7, 2026

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings February 7, 2026 07:52

lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch from 3969355 to b5e3166 Compare February 7, 2026 07:52

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lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch 2 times, most recently from 2fa670d to 33ae35f Compare February 7, 2026 07:55

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lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch from 33ae35f to 0062b79 Compare February 7, 2026 07:59

lewing mentioned this pull request Feb 7, 2026

Add vmr-codeflow-status Copilot skill #124109

Merged

lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch from 0062b79 to c0c18fd Compare February 7, 2026 16:59

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lewing added 2 commits February 7, 2026 11:18

lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch from 5cc04ae to adc8cb1 Compare February 7, 2026 17:19

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings February 7, 2026 17:21

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lewing force-pushed the lewing/vd-xml-fallback branch from 6daddd0 to 9d21ee3 Compare February 7, 2026 17:23

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lewing commented Feb 7, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Snapshot priority

Before (dotnet/sdk#52727 with manual backflow)

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lewing commented Feb 7, 2026 •

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