CI-fix triage protocol

Use this protocol before proposing a code change or emitting a CI-fixer safe output. The calling workflow supplies its branch, labels, title prefix, attempt limit, and allowed write surface; preserve those caller-specific restrictions.

Return a decision

For each candidate, state one terminal decision before taking an action:

• Decision: Continue — no dedup or safety gate blocks current-evidence analysis.
• Decision: Watch — exclusively an open workflow-owned CI-fix PR owns the issue; advance only that PR.
• Decision: Stop — an explicit human PR owns the issue; do not monitor it or plan a fallback CI-fix PR.
• Decision: Skip — the issue is stale, visual, already fixed, out of scope, or cannot be safely advanced.

Explain the concrete evidence for the decision. A search result is evidence to inspect, not a decision by itself.

Deduplicate without false ownership

1. An open CI-fix PR with the workflow's title prefix and exact Refs: dotnet/maui#<issue> is the only Watch case. Never open a second CI-fix PR for that issue.
2. A merged CI-fix PR with that exact reference is a Skip case until current evidence establishes a new regression.
3. A closed-unmerged CI-fix PR with that exact reference is a Skip case. A human closing the PR is a stop signal for the keep-one-PR loop.
4. An open human PR is always a Stop case when its own title or body explicitly declares that it addresses the tracking issue. Do not monitor it or plan a fallback CI-fix PR. Accept a Refs: declaration or a closing/reference keyword such as Fix, Fixes, Fixed, Close, Closes, Closed, Resolve, Resolves, or Resolved followed by the issue reference, including #<issue>, dotnet/maui#<issue>, or https://github.com/dotnet/maui/issues/<issue>.

GitHub search normally includes comments and incidental status text. Do not treat a raw issue number in a comment, check summary, commit message, diff, or unrelated list as human ownership. Inspect the PR title and body before stopping. If every result is incidental, continue triage.

Require current, specific evidence

Before a fresh attempt:

1. Confirm the issue is in the caller's branch and label scope.
2. Skip screenshot and visual-regression failures; do not modify baselines.
3. Verify the cited failure still reproduces on the latest completed base-branch build. A historical failure alone is not a reason to create a PR.
4. Trace the exact failing test, platform path, and deepest relevant stack frame. Check whether an intervening merged PR already fixed that path before proposing a duplicate or adjacent workaround.
5. Preserve the test's assertion. Do not mute, ignore, retry, weaken, or extend a timeout to hide a failure. A legitimate de-flake makes the state transition or synchronization deterministic.

Bound autonomous work

Advance only the existing CI-fix PR and respect the caller's effective attempt counter. When the cap is reached, defer rather than opening a replacement. Never claim the target test is fixed from a category-level result or an unrelated green leg; require evidence for the specific test on the CI-fix PR's current head.