Policy Waivers

Time-limited exceptions to pillar enforcement. Grant temporary bypasses for release freezes, hotfix workflows, or special cases.

Overview

Policy waivers let you temporarily disable a specific pillar for a repo, branch, PR, or issue — without editing .gitwire.yml or disabling the entire pillar.

Common use cases:

• Release freeze — pause CI healing on release/* branches during a freeze
• Hotfix exception — skip AI review on an urgent hotfix PR
• Bot migration — waive triage while migrating issue templates

Granting Waivers

Via Comment Command

/gitwire waive ci_healing for release/* until 2026-06-01 reason "release freeze"
/gitwire waive ai_review for 42 until 2026-05-25 reason "hotfix — skip review"
/gitwire waive triage reason "template migration"

Syntax:

/gitwire waive <pillar> [for <scope>] [until <date>] reason "<text>"

Part	Required	Description
<pillar>	Yes	Pillar to waive (ci_healing, triage, ai_review, etc.)
for <scope>	No	Branch name (glob), PR/issue number. Omit for repo-wide
until <date>	No	Expiry date (YYYY-MM-DD). Omit for indefinite
reason "<text>"	Yes	Why the waiver was granted

Via API

curl -X POST https://gitwire.erlab.uk/api/waivers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "repo": "owner/repo",
    "pillar": "ci_healing",
    "scope": "branch",
    "scopeValue": "release/*",
    "reason": "Release freeze",
    "grantedBy": "username",
    "expiresAt": "2026-06-01T00:00:00Z"
  }'

Revoking Waivers

/gitwire unwaive 42

Or via API:

curl -X DELETE https://gitwire.erlab.uk/api/waivers/42 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -d '{"revokedBy": "username"}'

Checking Waivers

Via API

# List active waivers for a repo
curl https://gitwire.erlab.uk/api/waivers?repo=owner/repo \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

# Check if a specific pillar is waived
curl "https://gitwire.erlab.uk/api/waivers/check?repo=owner/repo&pillar=ci_healing&scope=branch&scopeValue=release/1.0" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Response

{
  "waived": true,
  "waiver": {
    "id": 42,
    "pillar": "ci_healing",
    "scope": "branch",
    "scope_value": "release/*",
    "reason": "Release freeze",
    "granted_by": "username",
    "expires_at": "2026-06-01T00:00:00Z",
    "active": true
  }
}

Scope Hierarchy

Waivers are evaluated from most specific to broadest:

Scope	Matches	Example
issue	Specific issue number	for 123
pr	Specific PR number	for 42
branch	Branch name (glob)	for release/*
repo	Entire repository	(omit for clause)

A repo-wide waiver overrides all narrower scopes.

Auto-Expiry

Waivers with an expires_at date are automatically deactivated when checked. No cron job needed — expiry happens lazily during isWaived() calls.

Decision Logging

When a worker skips due to a waiver, it records a decision:

{
  "source": "ci_healing",
  "decision": "skipped",
  "reason": "Policy waived: Release freeze (by username)",
  "conditions": [
    { "check": "waiver_active(42)", "result": true }
  ]
}

This ensures the audit trail shows why an action was skipped.