Skipping a parked node closes its park
A node that stopped to ask a question, then got skipped, used to leave its question open and its session's key still working. Now a skip closes the park, and putting the node back gives you a clean one.
A route is the item broken into nodes, and each node is a session doing one PR's worth of work. When a session hits something the record does not settle, it parks: the node stops, its question goes to the answerer, and if the answerer cannot settle it either, the question shows up under Needs you for a person.
Sometimes the right answer to a parked question is "we don't need this node after all". So someone skips it. Until now that skip only changed the node's mark. The question stayed open, so the Needs you card stayed up for a node that would never run again. The paused session's run stayed open too, and the key that run held still worked. Nothing broke, but the sled showed a question nobody had to answer and a session that still looked live.
What a skip closes now
Skipping a parked node ends the park in one step:
- The question closes. It is marked superseded, with who skipped the node, so the Needs you card goes. If the answerer had already picked the question up, its session is stopped and its key no longer works.
- The run ends. The paused run is released, with a note saying who skipped it. It no longer counts as live work on the sled.
- The key stops working. The run's key is revoked, so the parked session can't report in, park again or land anything on a node that is no longer there.
A skip still never lands the item. It only steps the node aside, as it has since last week.
Putting the node back
Put it back on the item's route gives you a clean node: pending, with no run, no question and its tries reset. When its blockers are done it is ready again, and the next take starts it fresh, with a new run and nothing left over from the one that was skipped.
Why it matters
Needs you is only useful if everything on it actually needs you. A card for a node that will never run teaches people to skim past the list, and then they miss the question that is real. Closing the park when the node is skipped keeps the list honest, and so does revoking the key: nothing keeps working after you have said to stop.