A skip never lands an item
Skipping a node used to close the route, and a route that closed landed its item. Now a skip only steps a node aside: the item stays open, the route says so, and an item that landed by mistake can be put back.
A route is the item broken into nodes: the backend, the CLI, the web, the post that says it shipped. Each node lands as its own PR, and when every node is settled, the route is done. A node can also be skipped: the work turned out not to be needed, or it went in with another node, or someone decided to leave it for later.
Until now, a skip counted as settled, and settled counted as done. Skip the last node still open and the route closed, and the item landed with it. An epic with half its children still open could read as landed against its band. The sled lost an item it was still pulling, and the actual said the work cost less than it did.
What a skip does now
A skipped node steps aside. It does not land anything. An item lands when at least one of its nodes has landed and none is left to run, or when someone lands it on purpose with actual.
When skipped nodes are all that is left, the item stays where it was, and the route says so. On the item's page the route section reads only skipped nodes left — the item stays open, in the warning colour rather than the green of a finished route. A seat reading the route over MCP gets the same thing, in words it can act on: Only skipped nodes are left — the item stays open: land it with actual, or unskip a node.
The engine reads that route as idle. It will not start anything on it and it will not treat it as landed; it waits for a person to land the item or bring a node back.
Putting back a false landing
Items that landed the old way are still landed. Two ways to put one back:
- From a seat, the
reopentool:{project, reason}. It answers Reopened <key> — back on <sled>'s sled, or back to ready, on no sled when that sled is gone. - From a terminal,
sleds reopen <key> --reason "…". Same result, one line back.
Both ask for a reason, and it goes on the item's thread, so anyone reading the item later sees why it came back. The false actual is cleared; the band stands, so the item is still measured against what it was sized at.
Why it matters
The point of a band is the actual that lands against it. A skip that lands an item writes an actual for work that is not finished, and every comparison after that is off: the sled looks lighter than it is, the item looks cheaper than it was, and the next estimate learns from the wrong number. Keeping a skip a skip keeps the record honest.