Pull Request Review Flow: Barnacle and ClawSweeper Roles

This page describes what happens after you open or update an OpenClaw pull request: the roles Barnacle and ClawSweeper play, how to act on their feedback to improve the PR, and what to verify when no automation responds.

Barnacle and ClawSweeper assist maintainers in keeping the review queue manageable. They are not substitutes for maintainer judgment.

Barnacle

Barnacle performs deterministic triage on GitHub. It identifies familiar queue-management situations and reacts with labels, comments, or closures.

Barnacle may take action when:

• a PR body is largely empty or lacks problem context;
• a PR provides no meaningful evidence;
• a docs-only, test-only, refactor-only, CI-only, or infra change has no linked maintainer context;
• a change appears better suited for ClawHub or a plugin rather than core;
• a branch contains unrelated work;
• an author has over 20 open PRs.

Barnacle operates from trusted repository workflow code. It never checks out or executes contributor code.

Routing labels mostly serve as maintainer or automation signals, so contributors do not need to add labels themselves.

ClawSweeper

ClawSweeper is the AI-assisted review and maintenance bot for OpenClaw repositories. It can review PRs, assess proof, leave durable review comments, and support maintainers with guarded repair or automerge flows.

A positive ClawSweeper result counts as supporting evidence, not maintainer approval. Maintainers still determine whether and when a PR is ready to merge.

ClawSweeper operates on a queue. When you open a non-draft PR or convert a draft to ready for review, it immediately posts a short receipt comment, but the actual review still awaits a queue slot. Do not expect instant feedback after opening a PR, pushing a commit, or adding a review request. Label updates following a ClawSweeper run may also take time.

New PRs join the ClawSweeper review queue. Maintainers can also queue review, repair, or automerge flows using labels or commands. For ordinary contributor updates, ask ClawSweeper for another review only after updating the branch, PR description, proof, or code. Then request a fresh review with a new PR comment:

@clawsweeper re-review

PR authors can also use @clawsweeper re-run; users with repository write access can use either command on any open item. The plain @clawsweeper review command is restricted to maintainers. Be patient: requesting again before the requested changes exist only adds queue noise.

When ClawSweeper leaves review conversations, treat them like standard review feedback and work through the follow-up checklist below.

If a human contributor or maintainer has taken over the PR and is actively working on it, do not summon ClawSweeper or otherwise touch the PR at the same time. Let the human review or repair finish first. If activity stops, check whether the author was asked to provide proof or make other updates.

Improve a PR during review

Once Barnacle, ClawSweeper, or a maintainer responds, treat that feedback as the next-step checklist for the PR.

1. Treat ClawSweeper's Rank-up moves: and Proof guidance: as the action list for that PR. Ratings and labels are review signals, not fixed merge targets.
2. Push the requested code or docs change, and update the PR description when the problem, solution, user impact, or evidence has changed.
3. Add the requested proof, using evidence that matches the change.
4. Resolve addressed review conversations yourself. Reply and leave a conversation open only when you need maintainer or reviewer judgment.
5. Ask for a re-review only after the branch, PR description, evidence, and relevant CI results are current. Multiple update and review cycles between the author, maintainer, and ClawSweeper are normal.
6. Keep discussion on the PR when possible. Move to #clawtributors on Discord only when the PR needs maintainer coordination, automation appears blocked, or the next decision is hard to settle in GitHub comments. Include the PR link, current status, and the specific question or remaining evidence.

Keep the PR body current. Comments help with discussion, but the PR description is the durable summary maintainers and automation revisit.

status: ⏳ waiting on author means the next action is with the PR author: update the branch, PR description, proof, or reply with the missing context before asking for another review.

Useful evidence includes focused test output, CI results, screenshots, recordings, terminal output, live observations, redacted logs, or artifact links. For visual changes, include before and after screenshots when practical. For proof files, prefer linking CI artifacts, GitHub-uploaded screenshots or recordings, or a short redacted log excerpt. Do not commit generated proof files unless they are part of the actual docs, tests, or product change.

Redacting sensitive data is the contributor's responsibility. Remove secrets, tokens, private URLs, user data, and unrelated logs before posting proof.

OpenClaw also uses separate stale automation. Unassigned issues and PRs can be marked stale after 14 days of inactivity, then closed after 7 more idle days. Assigned PRs are marked stale 27 days after opening, regardless of later updates, then closed after 7 stale days without activity. If an assigned PR is still active, coordinate with the maintainer working on it.

When automation stays quiet

Automation may stay quiet when a maintainer is already handling the item, a review or repair request is still queued, the event is routine, or the ClawSweeper lane is not configured for the requested action.

It may also avoid action when a trusted workflow would need to run untrusted contributor code. In that case, maintainers use normal review or a safer workflow instead.

Troubleshooting

If ClawSweeper does not respond immediately, wait before retrying. The service is queue-based, and repeated comments or label changes can make the thread harder to review without making the queue faster.

Before asking for help, check:

• the PR description is current;
• the latest commit contains the requested change;
• CI has finished, or the PR body explains why any remaining failure is unrelated to the PR;
• the latest review request was made as a PR comment: @clawsweeper re-review;
• a maintainer or contributor is not already actively working on the PR;
• the latest request is not still within the normal ClawSweeper queue delay.

If there is still no ClawSweeper response several hours after the PR is current, or if the PR appears blocked by automation, ask in #clawtributors on Discord. Include the PR link, what you expected, when you asked, and what changed since the last bot comment.

Forking the automation

Projects that want similar review automation can study or fork ClawSweeper:

• openclaw/clawsweeper
• ClawSweeper docs

Related

• Contributing
• CI pipeline