--- title: "Wait until a draft is ready for expensive checks" description: "Avoid spending runner time on expensive validation until a draft pull request becomes ready for review." url: https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/defer-draft-work canonicalUrl: https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/defer-draft-work --- # Wait until a draft is ready for expensive checks Avoid spending runner time on expensive validation until a draft pull request becomes ready for review. ## How to choose an approach Compare the examples by repository setup, prerequisites, and risks before adopting one. Each company implemented this in its own environment; measure each change against your own baseline. - **[Shopify](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/shopify#defer-draft-work)**: Use it when Developers push to draft pull requests many times before asking for review. Check before adopting: Without ready_for_review, a draft promoted to ready keeps its skipped result on an untested commit. - **[Uber](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/uber#draft-gating)**: Use it when Drafts receive frequent exploratory commits and your team agrees that expensive checks can wait. Check before adopting: Drafts get feedback later, so agree on it as a team policy. Test draft, ready, reopened, main and merge-queue events so every required check still reports. ## Apply this technique ````text Evaluate and apply this CI technique to my repository: Wait until a draft is ready for expensive checks. Avoid spending runner time on expensive validation until a draft pull request becomes ready for review. Read the technique and its source-backed company examples: https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/defer-draft-work.md Inspect this repository’s CI workflows, build and test commands, dependencies, and recent run timings. Identify where this technique applies and explain the expected benefit using this repository’s evidence. Measure a baseline from recent comparable runs: elapsed time, queue time, runner minutes and failures where available. If data is unavailable, say what cannot be measured. Compare relevant company approaches, checking prerequisites, platform differences and tradeoffs. Rank applicable options by evidence, fit and measurable opportunity; do not present company results as predictions for this repo. Recommend the smallest safe change, show what checks and fallback paths remain, and ASK ME WHICH CHANGE TO APPROVE BEFORE EDITING ANY FILES. Only after approval, work on a new feature branch, make one reversible change, and open a reviewable pull request. Never merge or push to a default or protected branch. Keep required checks, test coverage, deployment and release behavior intact. Validate the change and compare equivalent runs where possible; report limitations and what should be monitored after merge. ```` ## How companies used this technique Read what each company changed and follow the original sources. ### Shopify: Run expensive checks when a draft becomes ready Checkout Kit skips its change-detection job, and so every platform job behind it, while a pull request is a draft. Adding ready_for_review to the trigger types starts a full run as soon as the draft is marked ready. Evidence: Source PR/commit evidence Merged 2026-06-16; both lines are on the default branch. ([Source](https://github.com/Shopify/checkout-kit/pull/284)) Use it when: Developers push to draft pull requests many times before asking for review. Before applying it: Without ready_for_review, a draft promoted to ready keeps its skipped result on an untested commit. [Read more in the Shopify playbook](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/shopify#defer-draft-work) [Primary source](https://github.com/Shopify/checkout-kit/pull/284) ### Uber: Wait until a draft is ready for expensive checks SubmitQueue added draft guards to every CI job and its required aggregate, then added ready_for_review to the workflow events. Pushes to main and merge-queue runs keep their validation. Evidence: Source PR/commit evidence Drafts skip the full suite, and it runs when the pull request is marked ready for review. ([Source](https://github.com/uber/submitqueue/pull/180)) Use it when: Drafts receive frequent exploratory commits and your team agrees that expensive checks can wait. Before applying it: Drafts get feedback later, so agree on it as a team policy. Test draft, ready, reopened, main and merge-queue events so every required check still reports. [Read more in the Uber playbook](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/uber#draft-gating) [Primary source](https://github.com/uber/submitqueue/pull/180) ## CI optimization is continuous work. Apply this technique yourself, or use StarSling Runners for faster GitHub Actions and optional agent-driven optimization PRs, which teams on eligible paid plans can turn on. [Get self-improving CI](https://starsling.dev/products/runners) ## Related techniques ### [Cancel superseded pull request runs](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/cancel-superseded-runs) Free runner capacity by canceling validation that a newer commit has replaced. Keep required main-branch and release runs intact. 4 implementations · 4 companies (Anthropic, Mastra, Stripe, Uber) ### [Package once, and build full installers after merge](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/package-once) Drop the build step that packaging repeats, and build the unpacked app pull requests test. 1 implementation · 1 company (DoorDash) ### [Reduce the setup floor before increasing shard count](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/setup-cost-limits-sharding) Each extra shard repeats checkout, dependencies and container setup. 1 implementation · 1 company (Linear) ## Company Playbooks ### [Anthropic](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/anthropic) Run only affected tests ### [DoorDash](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/doordash) Run build and test in parallel, sharded across CI agents ### [Linear](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/linear) Benchmark the same job on faster hardware ### [Mastra](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/mastra) StarSling runners for the slowest test workflow ### [OpenAI](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/openai) Rank CI fixes by the minutes they save ### [Ramp](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/ramp) Move a CPU-bound test suite to a faster CPU ### [Shopify](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/shopify) Let an agent iterate against one CI metric ### [Spotify](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/spotify) Build arm64 on native arm64 runners ### [Stripe](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/stripe) Run only the tests a change can reach ### [Uber](https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/uber) Build the merge-queue speculations most likely to be needed ## Related guides Implementation guides for this technique. ### [Cancel superseded CI runs](https://starsling.dev/best-practices/github-actions/cancel-superseded-runs) Use concurrency groups to keep PR verification focused on the latest commit. ### [Build and test only what changed](https://starsling.dev/best-practices/github-actions/build-only-affected) Scope work with your dependency graph and keep a full-run fallback. ### [Cut CI queue time](https://starsling.dev/best-practices/github-actions/cut-queue-time) Measure waiting time and identify concurrency or capacity constraints. ### [Filter workflows by changed files](https://starsling.dev/best-practices/github-actions/path-filter-workflows) Use paths and job conditions while keeping required checks reporting. ### [Bound runner jobs with timeouts](https://starsling.dev/best-practices/github-actions/bound-job-timeouts) Set job and step timeouts using expected durations and failure behavior. ### [Right-size GitHub Actions runners](https://starsling.dev/best-practices/github-actions/right-size-runners) Match runner resources to the workload and compare equivalent runs.