Clarify intake-blocked submissions in the plugin review board

[aaronpowell]

Pull Request Checklist

• I have read and followed the CONTRIBUTING.md guidelines.
• I have read and followed the Guidance for submissions involving paid services.
• My contribution adds a new instruction, prompt, agent, skill, workflow, or canvas extension file in the correct directory.
• The file follows the required naming convention.
• The content is clearly structured and follows the example format.
• I have tested my instructions, prompt, agent, skill, workflow, or canvas extension with GitHub Copilot.
• I have run npm start and verified that README.md is up to date.
• I am targeting the main branch for this pull request.

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Description

Submissions requiring submitter fixes appeared as ordinary Unreviewed cards, even when none could be queued. This made the board look stuck and encouraged requests to force reviews that intake correctly blocked.

Keep these submissions visible in their existing buckets, but show a Blocked by intake badge and a specific reason. The toolbar reports actual queueable and blocked counts, including when search hides cards. The drawer explains the block on every tab, and unavailable approval/re-review controls explain why they cannot be used.

The same eligibility and reasons are exposed through get_board, while empty start_review results distinguish intake blockers from a completed review queue. Moving a blocked card back to Unreviewed no longer promises an immediate review. Existing rejection, manual bucket moves, saved reviews, queued state, and first-party gating are preserved; this does not bypass or change intake policy.

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Type of Contribution

• New instruction file.
• New prompt file.
• New agent file.
• New plugin.
• New skill file.
• New agentic workflow.
• New canvas extension.
• Update to existing instruction, prompt, agent, plugin, skill, workflow, or canvas extension.
• Other (please specify):

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Additional Notes

Validation:

• node --experimental-vm-modules --test eng\external-plugin-review-board.test.mjs eng\external-plugin-review-board-state.test.mjs eng\external-plugin-review-board-ui.test.mjs eng\board-state-storage.test.mjs eng\board-bulk-actions.test.mjs eng\board-column-order.test.mjs eng\board-preview.test.mjs .github\extensions\external-plugin-review-board\lib\github.test.mjs - passed, 79 tests. Covers nine blocked cards, label-specific reasons, conflicting labels, blocked-to-ready transitions, agent responses, and existing board behavior.
• node --check .github\extensions\external-plugin-review-board\extension.mjs - passed.
• node --check .github\extensions\external-plugin-review-board\public\app.js - passed.
• npm start - passed after restoring missing dependencies with npm ci --no-audit --no-fund; generated files remain unchanged. Existing external-plugin metadata warnings were reported.
• bash eng/fix-line-endings.sh - passed.
• git diff --check - passed before committing.
• Browser validation using local file fixtures - passed for nine blocked cards, disabled controls, persistent reasons across drawer tabs, and a live transition to one reviewable card; no page errors or GitHub mutations.

The new-resource and paid-service checklist items are not applicable. Testing used browser fixtures and mocked canvas actions, not a reload of the running Copilot extension, so the live Copilot checkbox remains unchecked. No extension reloads or GitHub issue mutations were performed.

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By submitting this pull request, I confirm that my contribution abides by the Code of Conduct and will be licensed under the MIT License.

[github-actions]

🚦 Submission status: 👀 Ready for review

Risk tier: merge-risk:high — Privileged execution, automation, or review-policy change
Required to merge: passing submission-gate checks plus 1 approval from reviewers with write access, including a maintainer with admin or maintain permission.

Why this tier

• .github/extensions/external-plugin-review-board/README.md is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• .github/extensions/external-plugin-review-board/extension.mjs is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• .github/extensions/external-plugin-review-board/lib/state.mjs is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• .github/extensions/external-plugin-review-board/public/app.js is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• .github/extensions/external-plugin-review-board/public/index.html is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• .github/extensions/external-plugin-review-board/public/styles.css is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• eng/board-column-order.test.mjs is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• eng/board-state-storage.test.mjs is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• eng/external-plugin-review-board-state.test.mjs is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)
• eng/external-plugin-review-board-ui.test.mjs is a high-risk path (automation, scripts, MCP config, hooks, or review policy)

Automated checks

Check	Status	Details
Line endings	✅ Passed	Passed · logs
Spelling	✅ Passed	Passed · logs
Contributor reputation	✅ Passed	Passed · logs
Duplicate resource scan	⏳ Pending (advisory, non-blocking)	Running · logs
PR quality signal	⏳ Pending (advisory, non-blocking)	Running · logs

Review

• Approvals: 0/1
• Assigned reviewer: not assigned yet — comment /request-review to ask for one
• Review target date: not set
• Still needed: 1 more approval(s); an approval from a maintainer with admin or maintain permission
• The core-maintainers pool is not staffed yet; an approver with admin or maintain permission is required instead.

Commands

Command	Who	What it does
/rerun-checks	PR author, maintainers	Re-runs failed or incomplete checks and re-evaluates this gate
/request-review	PR author, maintainers	Asks the review rotation to assign a reviewer (adds needs-reviewer)

_{Updated for 706fda0 · gate run · This comment is maintained automatically — see submission gate docs.}

[github-actions]

🟡 Contributor Reputation Check: MEDIUM risk

Check	Risk
Profile	MEDIUM
Credential audit	NONE

Maintainers: please review this contributor before merging.
See the workflow run for full details.
Automated check powered by AGT.

[Copilot]

🟢 Approval recommended

Targeted verification confirms unchanged approval gating, and the remaining feedback is non-blocking.

1 open finding

• Eligibility bypasses shared pending-label configuration · New

What changed in this PR

Clarifies intake-blocked submissions in the internal plugin review board without changing intake policy.

Changes:

• Shows blocked reasons, queueable counts, and explanations for unavailable controls.
• Exposes eligibility through agent actions and improves empty-review responses.
• Adds regression coverage and updates documentation.

File	Description
eng/​external-plugin-review-board-ui.test.mjs	Tests blocked cards, controls, and counts.
eng/​external-plugin-review-board-state.test.mjs	Tests reasons and eligibility transitions.
eng/​board-state-storage.test.mjs	Tests blocked agent actions and persistence.
eng/​board-column-order.test.mjs	Updates the toolbar fixture.
.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​README.md	Documents blocked status and validation.
.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​public/​styles.css	Styles blocked notices and badges.
.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​public/​index.html	Adds toolbar and drawer status elements.
.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​public/​app.js	Displays reasons, counts, and control explanations.
.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​lib/​state.mjs	Centralizes reasons and exposes snapshot eligibility.
.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​extension.mjs	Improves agent summaries and blocked responses.

🧠 Review effort: Max

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[Copilot]

🔵 Needs a closer look

The blocked badge has insufficient text contrast, and some disabled-control tooltips misleadingly imply an intake blocker.

0 open findings

1 resolved since last review

• Eligibility bypasses shared pending-label configuration

Previously missed (2)

In code that hasn't changed since last review

Only mention incomplete intake when actionable cards are blocked

.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​public/​app.js:238

When the count is zero, Approve all and Re-review all mention incomplete intake even for an empty column or one containing only queued cards or pending decisions. This gives misleading guidance when intake is not the blocker. Mention intake only when the column contains otherwise actionable, intake-blocked cards; columnItems(column.id, "reject") includes those cards while excluding queued items and pending decisions.

Use --fg to meet contrast requirements for the badge text

.github/​extensions/​external-plugin-review-board/​public/​styles.css:196

In the fallback palette, this 11px badge uses #bc4c00 text on a background mixed from 14% orange and 86% white. Its contrast is 4.13:1, below the 4.5:1 minimum for normal-sized text. Use --fg for the text; it provides 12.97:1 contrast while preserving the orange background.

🧠 Review effort: Max