What’s new in Aviator

GitHub recently introduced native support for stacked PRs, created through the GitHub CLI (using gh stack push). MergeQueue now supports these stacks end to end, you can queue and merge GitHub-native stacks the same way you enqueue a av CLI stack.

What's new

• Automatic detection. MergeQueue reads GitHub's own stack metadata on each pull request, so it recognizes a GitHub-created stack without any setup. Stack ordering and dependencies come directly from GitHub, not inferred from base branches.
• Queueing works the way you'd expect. Queue a PR in the stack and MergeQueue validates it together with the PRs below it, exactly as it does for Aviator-managed stacks.
• PRs land as merged. When a GitHub-native stack goes through the queue, every PR in the stack shows as merged (not closed), and the GitHub's stack state stays consistent with what actually landed.

Read the docs

What you need to do

Nothing, it all just works. Support is enabled by default. Stacks created with the Aviator av CLI also continue to work exactly as before.

Inbox is your personalized PR dashboard. Instead of scanning GitHub for what's changed, Inbox organizes every pull request you're involved in by who has the attention — so you always know what needs you next, and what's waiting on someone else.

Organized by attention

Attention tracks who should act on a PR at any moment. When you send a PR for review, your reviewers have the attention; when they respond, it comes back to you. Inbox groups your PRs into clear sections around that idea:

• Requested review — PRs waiting on your feedback
• Returned — your PRs that reviewers have responded to
• Approved / Waiting for others — your PRs, ready to go or still pending reviewers
• Queued — PRs in the merge queue
• Drafts, Approved by me, and Snoozed

Snooze what can wait

Not everything needs you right now. Snooze a PR for a preset duration — 30 minutes through next week — or pick a custom date and time, and it disappears until you're ready to deal with it.

Filter out the noise

• Exclude specific authors, labels, or PRs with failing CI, so your sections stay focused on what's actionable.
• Scope the entire Inbox to a single repository.
• Apply per-section filters, including a freshness threshold that hides stale PRs.

Custom sections

Build your own sections with their own filters — a lane for your team's PRs, a specific label, or any slice of activity you want to keep an eye on.

Always up to date

Inbox updates in real time as PR activity happens — no manual refresh needed.

Read the docs →

Also shipped

• MergeQueue parallel mode: max_topup_builds keeps more CI builds running by freeing slots held by drafts already waiting to merge; a block_parallel_builds barrier now pauses only its own target branch instead of the whole repo.
• Redesigned Pulls page with Queue, Open, Closed, and Merged tabs.
• Releases: two-pane dashboard so the detail panel stays in view.

Aviator status, inline on the PR page

• Aviator's queue status now renders inside GitHub's native merge-status sidebar, so you can see exactly where a PR stands without switching to the dashboard.
• State-aware badges: a queued PR shows as Queued instead of just "Open."
• The blocked panel now explains why a PR is blocked and gives you a Queue button to act on the spot.
• The extension now persists its cache and caches managed config, so the popup opens instantly instead of waiting on a fetch.

FlexReview: no more reviewer streaks

• Reviewer selection now uses weighted randomness across equally-good candidates, so the same person no longer gets picked on back-to-back PRs — review load spreads evenly.

Also shipped

• Runbooks: REST update endpoint with PR-overrides on create and update; full edit access for every account user; auto-archive when a runbook's PR merges.
• MergeQueue: significant queue-page performance improvements for large repos; `skip-validation` now works independently of `skip-line`.

We recently released agent plugins for the Aviator CLI that bring stacked PR workflows to coding agents like Claude Code.

What the plugin does

The av-cli plugin teaches Claude Code and other coding agents how to use the Aviator CLI ( av ) for branch and PR management. Once installed, the agent will:

• Detect av-initialized repos and automatically use av commands instead of raw git
• Create branches within your stack using av branch so dependencies stay intact
• Open PRs with correct base branches via av pr — no more manually fixing targets
• Keep stacks in sync with av sync when parent branches change
• Handle merge conflicts using --continue , --abort , and --skip flags
• Adopt remote branches with av adopt --remote for collaborating on shared stacks

Getting started

Install from the Claude Code plugin marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add aviator-co/agent-plugins
/plugin install av-cli

Prerequisites: Aviator CLI installed, repo initialized with av init , and GitHub CLI or a GitHub PAT for auth.

The plugin activates automatically in av-initialized repositories — no extra prompting required.

Why stacked PRs

Stacked PRs let you break large features into small, reviewable chunks while maintaining dependencies between them. Instead of one massive PR that nobody wants to review, you get a chain of focused, incremental changes. When a parent branch changes, av sync automatically rebases the dependent branches.

Pair that with a coding agent that actually understands the workflow, and you get fast iteration without the manual bookkeeping.

Check out the plugins repo: github.com/aviator-co/agent-plugins

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Runbooks becomes addressable from places other than the dashboard — Linear, a REST API, existing PRs, and uploaded spec files.

Trigger from Linear

Kick off a Runbook directly from a Linear issue.

• Connect Linear from **Settings → Integrations** via OAuth.
• Once connected, issue events in Linear create Runbook sessions automatically, with the issue's context passed through as the initial prompt.

REST API

Create and monitor Runbook sessions programmatically.

• POST /api/v1/runbook creates a session — pass a repo , a prompt , and optional title , pr_mode , and target_branch .
• GET /api/v1/runbook/<runbook_number> returns the session status, step tallies (generating / not started / in progress / partially completed / completed / failed), and any PRs the session has opened.
• Authenticated with an Aviator API token.
• Read the Docs

Run on existing PRs

/aviator revise now works on PRs that weren't created by Runbooks.

• Drop the command as a comment on any existing PR and Runbooks spins up a retroactive session around the PR's current state, so the agent can address review feedback just like on a Runbook-authored PR.
• Useful for bringing Runbooks into PRs that started life as a manual change but would benefit from agent-driven revisions.

Spec file uploads

Upload .md and .txt spec files from the Runbooks page to seed a session.

• Supports spec-driven planning — drop in a design doc, requirements file, or migration plan and the agent uses it as primary context when generating steps.
• Uploaded files are attached to the session and carried through into step execution.

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