## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work
> - The `/pr-gardening` skill drives a bundled agent that scans a
company's issues for those linked to open GitHub PRs, then reports on
their state; it relies on the server's company-search **extract**
endpoint to pull PR references out of issue bodies
> - Two gaps surfaced during end-to-end QA of the gardening workflow:
the extract service silently ignored a per-issue match cap, so callers
could not bound how many matches came back per issue, and the skill's
candidate-discovery scripts fell over on large repos and on issues that
referenced deleted PRs
> - Left unaddressed, the gardener either truncated its scan
unpredictably or aborted outright, so it could not reliably enumerate PR
candidates
> - This pull request honors an explicit `matchesPerIssue` limit in the
extract search API and hardens the skill's candidate discovery against
missing/unavailable PRs and oversized `gh` output
> - The benefit is a PR-gardening workflow that scans deterministically
and finishes cleanly on real-world companies
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
No pre-existing public GitHub issue — describing the bug in-PR following
the bug report template (`.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/bug_report.yml`).
### What happened?
The company-search extract endpoint accepted a per-issue match limit but
did not apply it, returning matches capped only by the old hardcoded
constant regardless of the caller's request. Separately, the
`/pr-gardening` skill's candidate-discovery scripts crashed when a
scanned issue referenced a deleted PR (GitHub `Not Found (HTTP 404)` /
GraphQL `Could not resolve to a PullRequest`) and could exceed the
default `gh` output buffer on large result sets, aborting the whole
scan.
### Expected behavior
The extract API bounds matches per issue when a caller passes
`matchesPerIssue` (default 20, max 200), and omitting it preserves the
previous default. The gardening scripts skip PRs that are
deleted/unavailable and tolerate large `gh` responses without aborting
the scan.
### Steps to reproduce
1. Call the company-search extract endpoint with a `matchesPerIssue`
value against an issue containing many PR references — previously the
value was ignored.
2. Run the pr-gardening candidate scan against a company whose issues
reference a since-deleted PR — previously the scan threw instead of
skipping that PR.
### Paperclip version or commit
`master` at the base of this PR (branch cut from current
`origin/master`).
### Deployment mode
Local Paperclip instance / self-hosted.
## What Changed
- **Extract search honors `matchesPerIssue`**: added the
`matchesPerIssue` field to the shared search validator/types and applied
the cap in `company-search-extract` so results are bounded per issue
(`packages/shared`, `server/src/services/company-search-extract.ts`,
`doc/SPEC-implementation.md`).
- **Hardened pr-gardening candidate discovery**: `find-candidates.mjs` /
`lib.mjs` now request `matchesPerIssue=200`, treat missing/unavailable
PRs (deleted PR → `isMissingPullRequestError` / `unavailable`) as skips
instead of fatal errors, and raise the `gh` `maxBuffer` to 50 MB for
large repos.
- **Tests**: expanded `company-search-extract-{routes,service}.test.ts`
for the new limit and added coverage in `pr-gardening.test.mjs`.
## Verification
Re-run on a fresh worktree cherry-picked onto current `master`:
- `node --test
.agents/skills/pr-gardening/scripts/pr-gardening.test.mjs` → 8/8 pass
- `pnpm vitest run
server/src/__tests__/company-search-extract-routes.test.ts
server/src/__tests__/company-search-extract-service.test.ts` → 10/10
pass
## Risks
Low risk. `matchesPerIssue` is optional and backward-compatible
(omitting it preserves prior behavior). The skill changes only add
skip/tolerance paths and a larger buffer; no schema or migration
changes.
## Model Used
Claude — Opus 4.8 (`claude-opus-4-8`), extended thinking, tool use /
code execution via the Claude Agent SDK.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [ ] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [ ] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
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