Auto-Fix & AI Author Mode

Let DocuGardener handle documentation updates automatically — especially for AI-authored code.

Auto-Fix

When DocuGardener detects documentation drift, it generates exact Markdown diffs showing what needs to change. You can apply these fixes in two ways:

One-click from the Triage Inbox— Click “Apply fix” on any finding. DocuGardener opens a pull request with the suggested documentation changes, linked back to the original analysis.
Automatic via AI Author Mode — When enabled, DocuGardener creates and merges fix PRs without any human intervention for qualifying pull requests (see below).

AI Author Mode

AI Author Mode is designed for teams that use AI coding agents extensively. When a pull request is authored by an AI tool — and documentation drift is detected — DocuGardener automatically opens a fix PR and merges it once CI passes. Zero human intervention.

How DocuGardener Detects AI-Authored PRs

DocuGardener uses four signals to determine whether a PR was authored by an AI agent:

Signal	Example
Bot sender	PR opened by `dependabot[bot]`, `renovate[bot]`, or a GitHub App
Branch prefix	Branch starts with `copilot/`, `cursor/`, `devin/`, or `claude/`
PR body marker	PR description contains known AI tool signatures (e.g. “Generated by Copilot”)
Custom pattern	A regex pattern you define in Agent Governance settings

If any of these signals match, the PR is classified as AI-authored.

When Does AI Author Mode Fire?

AI Author Mode fires when all three conditions are met:

The PR is detected as AI-authored (any of the four signals above).
AI Author Mode is enabled in your settings.
The drift analysis found at least one documentation update to make (i.e. the suggested fix is non-empty).

When these conditions are met, DocuGardener opens a documentation fix PR targeting the same base branch and attempts to auto-merge it after CI passes.

Auto-Merge Methods

You can configure which merge strategy DocuGardener uses for auto-merging fix PRs:

Squash (default) — All fix commits are squashed into a single commit.
Merge commit — A standard merge commit is created.
Rebase — Fix commits are rebased onto the target branch.

CI Gate

Safety first: Auto-merge is skipped if any required CI check fails on the fix PR. In that case, the fix PR stays open for manual review.

DocuGardener polls the fix PR’s check status using exponential backoff. Once all required checks pass, the PR is merged automatically. If checks fail, the finding in the Triage Inbox transitions from “AI working” to “Fix ready” with a note that manual review is needed.

Auto-Heal Mode

In addition to AI Author Mode, DocuGardener supports Auto-Heal — which triggers a fix PR for any pull request (not just AI-authored ones) when the drift score meets or exceeds a configurable threshold. Enable this in Settings → Agent Governance → Auto-Heal.

Configuration

Both AI Author Mode and Auto-Heal are configured in Settings → Agent Governance:

AI Author Mode toggle — Enable or disable automatic fix PRs for AI-authored PRs.
Auto-merge method — Choose squash, merge, or rebase.
Auto-Heal toggle — Enable automatic fix PRs for all PRs above the drift threshold.
Auto-Heal threshold — Drift score at which Auto-Heal fires (default matches your DRIFT_SCORE_THRESHOLD).