Owner Routing Process

Step-by-step procedure for determining the most likely owner/team for each bug cluster using strict 6-level precedence with staleness detection and override memory.

Overview

Loaded by the owner-router agent inside the x-bug-triage plugin. Walks each open bug cluster through a deterministic six-level routing precedence (service-owner → oncall → CODEOWNERS → recent assignees → recent committers → fallback mapping), applies confidence modifiers, detects stale signals, and produces a ranked routing recommendation. Honors prior routing overrides recorded in cluster memory before consulting any signal source.

Prerequisites

• Cluster table populated upstream by the bug-clustering stage
• Routing config available at config/routing.json (precedence modifiers, staleness threshold)
• Triage MCP server reachable for mcptriagelookup_* tool calls
• Repos in the cluster's product_surface have a configured surface→repo mapping

Instructions

Step 1: Check Overrides First

For each cluster, check if a routing_override exists from a prior run:

• If found: use the override (confidence 1.0, source "routing_override"), skip precedence lookup
• Log the override application to audit

Step 2: Query Sources in Precedence Order

For each cluster without an override, query sources strictly in order:

Stop at the first level that returns a valid team or assignee.

Step 3: Apply Confidence Modifiers

Multiply each result's confidence by the precedence modifier from routing_config.

Step 4: Detect Staleness

Flag any routing signal older than the staleness threshold (default 30 days):

• Mark the result as stale with the number of days
• Reduce confidence accordingly
• Stale signals are still usable but should be noted in output

Step 5: Build Recommendation

Using lib.buildRoutingRecommendation():

• Rank valid results by level (lowest level = highest priority)
• Set top_recommendation to the best result
• If no valid results: set uncertainty=true with reason "Routing: uncertain — no routing signals available. Manual assignment required."

Output

• cluster_routing rows with ranked candidates (team/assignee, source level, confidence, staleness flag)
• top_recommendation field set on each cluster (or null with uncertainty=true if no signals)
• Audit-event rows recording every override application, source query, and stale-signal flag

Error Handling

• Source query failure (transient API error): log, skip that level, fall through to next
• All six levels return empty: emit uncertainty=true with the standard reason, do not raise
• Override exists but references a non-existent team: log warning, fall back to precedence walk
• Staleness detection unavailable (missing timestamp): treat signal as fresh, flag as "unknown_age"

Examples

Triggered automatically by the owner-router agent after clusters are produced. Typical run output for a 12-cluster batch: "12 clusters routed — 1 via override, 4 via service-owner, 3 via oncall, 2 via CODEOWNERS, 2 via recent committers, 0 via fallback (1 stale signal flagged)".

Resources

Load routing precedence rules:

!cat skills/x-bug-triage/references/routing-rules.md

Load escalation trigger definitions:

!cat skills/x-bug-triage/references/escalation-rules.md